


Eternal Hope

by Diamond_Raven



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Drug Dealing, Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Prison, Prostitution, Revolution, resistance movement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-03-17
Updated: 2002-03-17
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diamond_Raven/pseuds/Diamond_Raven
Summary: For twenty years, Seamus Harper lived on Earth, having to survive the brutal oppression bestowed upon all kludges by the Nietzscheans occupying the planet. After fleeing and finally making a new life for himself, his past comes back to haunt him as he is forced to face his past and all the events and people in it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've tagged all the major themes but I don't provide trigger warnings for minor events. Feel free to email me if you'd like to ask whether specific things take place in these chapters or not.

‘The heavens burned, the stars cried out, and under the ashes of infinity, Hope, scarred and bleeding, breathed at last.’

-Ulatempa Poetess

* * *

Harper adjusted his goggles and turned on his nano welder. Sparks flew around him as he neatly cut into the panel in front of him. He moved over a bit and finished slicing through the metal. With a clatter, the panel fell off the wall and crashed onto the floor.

Harper looked down. “Oops.” He mumbled, picking it up.

Dylan glanced over at him from where he was leaning against the piloting chair, talking to Beka.

“Mr. Harper, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t break my ship apart.”

Harper flashed him a grin. “No prob, boss.”

He turned the panel over in his hands and hammered a few dents out of it with the back of his welder. When it was as straight as it could be, he lifted it up to the gaping hole he had cut it out of. Holding it with one hand, he rummaged around in his tool belt until he found what he was looking for. Slowly, he turned the soldering wand on and started welding the panel back into place.

“Do you need some help?” Came a voice from behind him. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was Trance.

He turned off the solder and took off the goggles. He grinned at her. “Thanks but no thanks purpleness. I’m done.”

He noticed Trance was staring at him.

He frowned. “What?”

She continued staring at him, a confused frown on her face.

He shifted around uncomfortably. “What?”

She pointed at his arm. “What was that?”

Harper glanced down at his arm to where she pointing. All he saw was the sleeve of his navy blue shirt covering that part of his arm.

He had suddenly gone numb. Why was she pointing at his arm? Oh my God.

He gave her a big grin, hoping to divert her attention.

“What was what?” he asked, hoping his voice sounded lighter than he felt. He was slowly starting to shake, panic creeping into him. She couldn’t have seen it. No way. She couldn’t have.

Trance however, wasn’t being shaken off. She continued frowning and pointed at his arm again.

“Those black spots on your arm. I saw them when you were lifting up the panel. What were they? They looked like stars.”

Harper found the hairs on the back of his neck standing up straight. He blinked a few times to keep his eyes from widening in panic. He struggled to keep the grin on his face.

“Oh, those? Just birthmarks, Trance. Humans get them all the time. You’re born with them. No big deal.” He quipped, trying to keep his voice steady. He had to get out of here. He couldn’t let this conversation keep on going. He had to shake her somehow. Especially now that Dylan was slowly starting to come over here too. Damn, damn, damn. She had seen them. Damn. He was always careful never to wear sleeveless shirts around any of them. Damn. Stupid panel.

She was still frowning at him.

Panic was slowly starting to make him shake.

“They’re just birthmarks, Trance. Nothing special. Now, sorry for cutting this conversation short, Trance, but I got work to do in Engineering.” He managed to say. Then he roughly pushed past her and nearly ran out of Command, his entire body shaking now.

He kept on walking, careful to keep the fear from showing on his face. He didn’t want Rommie to notice anything and notify Dylan. Or Beka. Man, this was bad.

Damn, damn, damn. Why did she have to notice them? Why? It had been years since anybody had last seen them. Or asked about them.

For about the millionth time in his life he started berating himself for not getting rid of them. But now it was too late. Now, there would be too many questions if he was going to go and get them removed. Questions which would need answers. Answers which would get him killed.

Damn.

He stopped walking and leaned heavily against the wall. Slowly, he closed his eyes and slid down until he was sitting on the floor, his head leaning against the wall.

Shit.

Why now? Why now, when everything was going so well? Why did his past always have to come and bit him in the ass when everything was going well?

Why now?

* * *

Fourteen year old Seamus Harper wandered along the streets, shivering from the cold. Night had come and enveloped the streets in darkness. He pulled his dirty, worn through shirt tighter around his thin frame. He was shaking from the cold. He bit his lip to keep his teeth from chattering. He didn’t want anybody to hear him.

He walked along slowly, staying in the gutter. He didn’t like walking on the sidewalks. Always some drunk or flash fried idiot who sat lurking in the shadows waiting for a young and weak thing like himself to walk by.

He only knew too well what one of these idiots would do to him. Either beat him up because he didn’t have any money or drugs on him for them, or they would sell him to somebody to screw with and then they’d keep the money.

Neither scenario was too pleasant.

He kept on walking, ignoring the painful hunger pangs from his stomach and tightened his shirt around him.

He heard a noise beside him and instantly leapt aside, his hand instinctively going down to his shoe where he kept his knife.

He kept absolutely still, his eyes scanning the dark sidewalk. When nothing happened, he straightened up and kept on walking, his eyes still glancing right and left, ready if anyone decided to jump him.

It had been like this for months. Walking around in the gutters, begging and stealing money and food every day and sleeping in the gutters too, waking up every few hours to listen for any drunk lurkers who might harm him.

Every day was the same. Nothing ever changed. Some days he wouldn’t get any food, some days he’d be beat up by a group of drug crazed punks, but other than that, his entire life was the same, day in and day out.

He guessed he was still in shock. That’s why every day seemed the same. So monotone. So dull. He still had a hard time getting used to the fact that he wasn’t at home anymore.

Home.

He smiled bitterly as he walked, kicking the dirt with his shoes. Home.

Everybody had called the camp that. Even he had. Well, why wouldn’t he? The camp had been his home for all the fourteen years he had been alive for. Where his mother had raised him after his father had left. Where he had played with his cousins for hours, running around and getting in trouble and then running away from the Nietzschean guards. Where he had run to his uncle Peter whenever his father had come back home and had gotten drunk and Seamus had wanted to run to somebody to protect him. Where he had spent endless years running around with his best friend Osim, getting into trouble together and laughing together. Where his aunt Nina had often come to his house and sat talking with his mother for hours about absolutely nothing. They had been happy. Poor. Hungry. Constantly paranoid. But also happy.

Then the Magog had to come and ruin everything.

He spat onto the ground, his eyes growing bitter with hatred.

Why did they even have to come? Why couldn’t they just leave them alone? And of course, just to top things off, they had to come right after the famine too. Everybody had been too weak to defend themselves.

Everybody had tried to run. It was useless to fight. They had no weapons. Just some sticks and rocks which they had tried to throw at them. But throwing rocks and sticks at Magog was about as effective as hitting a Nietzschean with a shovel. It accomplished nothing except making them madder.

His aunt had tried to run. Seamus remembered how she had tried to run, carrying both of her little children in her arms. He had tried to run to her to help her, but the Magog had been faster. They had grabbed her and burned her entire body with their acid venom. She had screamed and had dropped her children to clutch at her face where the skin was peeling off and burning.

Seamus had run closer, intent on grabbing his cousins who now lay on the ground, trying to get up, their eyes terrified as they stared at the Magog above them. But he had been too late. An entire horde of Magog had jumped onto the two children and had engulfed them.

By the time they were done, the two had been paralyzed and infested.

Seamus had tried creeping closer, his mind not letting him accept the fact that there was nothing more for him to do. Suddenly, his uncle had started screaming at him to run. Seamus looked up and saw a Magog standing in front of his uncle, pulling at his arm. His uncle was trying to fight him off, at the same time, hysterically screaming at him to run away.

But he couldn’t move. His feet seemed to be planted to the ground. He couldn’t move. Even when he saw the Magog throw his head around and saw his uncle flying through the air with a scream of pain as his arm tore off and remained in the Magog’s mouth.

Even when he looked down and saw his mother lying there on the ground in front of him.

She had tried to run to him. Tried to save him. But she had been too slow.

The Magog had jumped on her from behind and slammed her body to the ground and had immediately started tearing her to shreds. With one last scream of anguish, she died.

Seamus stared down at her, her entire body mangled and bleeding, so badly torn apart that he could hardly recognize her. Her entire face had almost been ripped in half, but he could still see her eyes.

They stared at up him, pleading him to help her.

But he couldn’t. It was too late. Too late to save her.

He slowly bent over and softly closed her eyes. Then he turned and walked away from her body.

That had been the last time he had seen his mother.

* * *

Harper squeezed his eyes shut to keep the tears from welling up. Why did she have to die? And that painful way? Why couldn’t she have died quietly in bed of old age?

But who was he kidding?

Of course she hadn’t made it. Nobody had. Out of 5000 only 60 had made it. And barely 60.

Even his uncle, the strongest out of all of them hadn’t made it. Three days after the attack, an infection had started in the stump of his arm. The lack of medical supplies at the camp made him basically helpless. Although Harper had stayed up with him all of those three nights, giving him water and the little food he managed to scrape together, it was all in vain. He died during the third night, but not before begging Seamus to burn his two children, not wanting them to go through the pain which would rip through their bodies as the Magog babies would start to hatch and eat their way out of the two children.

In a daze, Seamus had gone through with his wish. When the survivors in the camp had built a huge bonfire, throwing on all the bodies of the infested, he had grabbed his two cousins and dragged their paralyzed bodies onto the burning heap, ignoring the smell of burnt flesh which stung his nose and eyes.

He had quietly closed their eyes first and wished them a better life after this one. He wasn’t sure what other life that was, but he knew it had to be better than this.

Any life had to be better than this.

* * *

The Nietzscheans had liquidated the camp soon after that. With only 60 people left, they didn’t have the strength to grow the thousands of kilograms of crops which the Nietzscheans demanded from them every week.

They had been gathered together one day and had been ordered to leave. Just like that. Not being allowed to take anything with them, not being allowed to be given a place to go.

The Nietzscheans had never given a damn about them, and that day, it had really showed.

Standing there in the crisp morning cold, shivering underneath the filthy shirt he had clenched around himself and ignoring the hunger pangs from his stomach, Seamus glared up at the Nietzschean guards who sniffed and told them to get going. Seamus opened his mouth to mouth him off, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to get another beating. He had gotten one when he had been seven. For stealing some food off a sleeping guard. It hadn’t been fun. He had sworn right then and there never to open his mouth unless it was absolutely necessary.

This wasn’t one of those times.

He glanced sideways and saw Osim, glaring at the guard too.

Seamus moved over a little and was about to whisper to Osim to keep his mouth shut. Complaining and whining would only get them all a beating.

But Osim didn’t notice Seamus trying to keep him quiet.

He angrily opened his mouth, glaring at the guard.

“So this is it, huh? You don’t need us anymore and you just tell us to get out of here?”

The guard glanced at him. “You’re a quick one.” He said, his eyes flashing dangerously, clearly warning Osim not to step over the line.

Seamus moved over and sharply kicked Osim in the shins, not caring whether the guard would hit him for moving without being told to. Oh, God, Osim. Just shut up.

But Osim was too angry to notice Seamus kicking him.

“Well, I gots news for ya Nietzschy, we don’t need you neither so why don’t you pack up and get the fuck out of here?”

The guards eyebrows shot up and his hand flashed out and he grabbed Osim by the front of his shirt and yanked him up until he was hanging above the ground, staring into the Nietzschean’s eyes. Panic slowly gripped him as he started to struggle.

The Nietzschean laughed. Seamus shuddered and clenched his teeth. He hated their laughter. They always laughed. And always in such a way that it made him feel worthless. Little. Inferior. He hated their laughter.

He opened his mouth to try and save Osim, but he knew that there was nothing he could do. He closed his mouth again and turned away, not wanting to see his best friend being dragged off. But he heard him. Heard his screams, his cries for help. He had even called his name once. Begging for help. But Seamus didn’t turn around and blocked out the sounds. There was nothing he could do anymore.

* * *

Seamus tripped over the sleeping form of a person sleeping in the gutter. He fell onto the pavement, scraping his knees on the hard ground. He bit his lip harder to keep from crying out. The less attention you drew to yourself, the better.

That’s why he didn’t try to help Osim. Not only would it have been useless, but it would have resulted in him getting beaten as well. It was selfish, he knew, but there was no other way to survive.

Osim had been dragged to the little chamber the Nietzscheans had by the gate of the camp, reserved for punishment purposes. His shirt had been ripped off and he had been tied onto the table, screaming and crying for help the entire time. Seamus hadn’t turned around from where he was standing. He knew only too well what that table felt like. Knew how terrified Osim was at the moment.

Don’t think about it, Seamus. Don’t think about it.

He remained standing there, listening to his friends cries for help slowly change into screams of pain as the whipping started.

Don’t think about it.

He tried to block out the sounds, but they tore through his mind, not letting him ignore them. They went on and on. The heavy cracking of the whip. The insane screams of pain tearing from Osim’s throat.

Don’t think about it.

And suddenly, there was silence. Seamus thought he had gone deaf, but then the person standing beside him coughed and he realized that Osim was dead.

He didn’t know how he knew. He just did.

He saw people die every day. Knew how silent they got when they stopped moving.

Osim was dead.

Just like his entire family, Osim was dead now too.

He blinked, shock still engulfing him.

The Nietzschean guard came out of the chamber, stripping black, blood soaked gloves off his strong hands. He came over to the small group of huddled, wasted people.

Silently, he pointed at the gate.

Slowly, without a word, the group of people started moving towards the gate, dragging their tired, wasted bodies along the ground.

Seamus slowly followed the crowd, not noticing the gate as they passed through it, not noticing when the dirt road they were walking on turned to cement, not noticing when the people around him started dropping to the ground, their bodies no longer moving, their eyes staring blankly at the sky above them.

When the shock finally wore off, Seamus Harper, age fourteen, found himself in the heart of a wasted, broken city, completely helpless, and completely alone.

* * *

He clutched his stomach as he walked along. God, he was hungry. He didn’t remember the last time he had eaten something. Was it yesterday? The day before? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Thinking about it wouldn’t make the hunger go away.

He had learned that very quickly too. Fantasizing about things which would never happen only set him up for more pain. So he tried thinking about the present. Not the past. Too much pain there. Not the future. Too much hope there.

He tripped over the sleeping form of a drunk lying in the gutter. He picked himself up and was about to keep on walking, when he saw the drunk clutching something in his hands. He quietly crept over and bent over the snoring body of the man. He reeked of alcohol and dirt. Seamus ignored the stench and silently slid his hands along the man’s jacket, searching for pockets. Finally, he found them. He quietly rummaged around inside of them, his fingers grabbing hold of a few thrones. He yanked out his hands, growing excited by the prospect of having food soon. He was about to get up and run away, when he saw the beer bottle still in the man’s hand. Seamus glanced around in the shadows. Nobody could see him.

Without another thought, he grabbed the beer bottle. Pushing himself off the ground, he ran as quickly as he could down the street.

He ducked into a broken doorway of a dirty store and huddled there, clutching the bottle and the thrones in his hands.

Suddenly, he heard the familiar sound of heavy boots stomping down the street. His eyes widened in panic and he crept further back into the shadows.

Nietzschean night patrol.

They roamed around the streets, killing anybody who came across their path. They loathed the gutter sleepers and the few druggies who lay around the streets all night and spent their nights shooting them or beating them up for entertainment.

Seamus pushed himself further back, careful to breath as quietly as possible. He had been caught by them once. He had been sleeping the gutters and they had grabbed him.

Seamus shuddered and closed his eyes at the memory. They had beaten him up and then stripped his clothes off of him and laughed at him until bitter tears of humiliation stung his cheeks.

He had sworn right then and there never to be caught by them again.

He clutched the beer bottle and took a quick sip. He shuddered and nearly spat it out. It tasted like urine. Disgusting.

But, it was still good alcohol. He shrugged and drank some more.

The boots came closer. He started panicking and started wildly looking around himself for a better place to hide. Sitting in a fucking doorway wouldn’t do him any good.

Suddenly, a voice from the shadows whispered to him. “In here. Quick.”

He stared around himself, wondering where the voice had come from, when an arm shot out and grabbed him and yanked him behind a piece of wood leaning against the wall.

Seamus landed on his face on the ground, the beer bottle nearly having smashed against the wall, but he quietly lay there, not daring to move.

The boots came closer and he heard one of them laughing as they slowly passed by. Seamus gritted his teeth. He hated their laughter.

He stayed lying on the ground, shaking from panic, until the sound of the boots faded away into the night.

Only then did he push himself up and brush the dirt off his shirt and turn around to see who that mysterious hand had belonged to.

He found himself facing a young boy, who couldn’t have been any older than he was. He had shortly cropped, filthy black hair and his eyes were the color of pale ice. They shone in the faded light from the moon.

Seamus stared at him. “Thanks.” He mumbled. The other boy shrugged.

“Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”

Seamus didn’t take his eyes off him, his guard still up. He had learned very quickly that it wasn’t smart to trust people quickly. It was too easy to get stabbed in the back. Slowly, he held the beer bottle towards him.

The boy was also still staring at Seamus, judging and measuring him up with his eyes. He didn’t hesitate however, when the beer bottle was offered to him. He took it and took a swig. He made a face.

“Man, this tastes like piss.”

Seamus grinned warily. “No kidding. But it’s still beer.”

The other boy smiled back, some of the suspicion gone from his eyes. “I’m Pez. Pez Madden.”

Seamus continued staring at him, slowly letting his guard down. Anybody who told him their name so fast must be trustworthy.

“I’m Seamus. Seamus Harper.”

The boy nodded, still smiling.

“How long have you been running around the streets for?” Pez asked him, taking another sip and handing the bottle back to Seamus.

He took a sip and shrugged. “Couple of months.”

Pez nodded. “You didn’t look like a newbie. I’ve been here almost my whole life. You got parents?”

He shook his head. “Just my dad, but he left two years ago. Haven’t seen him since.”

Pez brushed some of the dirt off his own filthy shirt. “My ma and pa both died in a Nietzschean raid a year ago. I’ve been on my own since.”

He looked up at Seamus. “Hungry?”

Seamus nodded. “Haven’t had a bite in what seems like forever.”

Pez nodded and leapt up. Seamus stood up too and they stood there for a bit, listening to any suspicious sounds. When they heard none, they walked out from behind the wood and started walking down the street.

When they came across the sleeping form of a couple of flash fried druggies, both of them set to work rummaging through their pockets, without a word.

When they were done, they got up and ran down the street, still not talking. Only when they were a safe distance away did they show each other what they had gotten.

A piece of bread and an old chicken bone with some of the meat still on it.

Pez grinned at him. “We make a good team.”

Seamus smiled back. “Seems like we do.”


	2. Chapter 2

During the next two months, they spent every day together.

They talked together, they drank together, they laughed together, they stole together, they got in trouble together, they ate together and they starved together.

They found themselves a cozy little home, the basement of an old abandoned building. The top floor had caved in, but in the basement there was enough room to build a cozy little fire and to drag an old mattress into for them to sleep on. In the morning before they left to wander the streets, they always boarded up the small window through which they crept in and out of.

From the outside it looked like an old abandoned wreck. Nobody walking by could have guessed that two fourteen year old guys lived in there.

They lived every day by whatever happened to stumble across their path. They stole and begged for food and money, sometimes even resorting to beating up other younger kids for food. It was a desperate fight against death every day.

It wasn’t until half a year after Seamus had first met Pez that dark night that they got a job. A real job.

He hadn’t believed Pez at first when he had come stumbling in through the window, babbling excitedly about some job offer that he had gotten that morning.

“What job, Pez? Shit, you drunk or something?”

Pez collapsed onto the mattress and grinned up at him. “Never been more sober in my life.”

“Really? What the hell are you talking about? Job offer, my ass.”

Pez smiled. “Shay, I ain’t joking, and I ain’t drunk. This guy, Sib or something like that was in the bar where I was sitting, flirting with some hooker. Comes in there and starts complaining to Charlie (the bartender) that he didn’t have any more runners. All got caught or something—”

“Runners? Pez, are you talking—”

“Just listen, Shay. So anyway, I says to him that I’m looking for a job, and so are you. He looks at me and asks if we would be interested in being runners.”

“And you said?”

“I told him we’d love to. He says to meet him tomorrow on Berkling Street.”

Seamus covered his eyes with his hands. “Running, Pez? That’s illegal, you know that.”

“So what? We do illegal crap every day. Plus, everybody else does it. Plus, it pays real good.”

Shay looked at him from between his fingers. It did sound appealing. The pay really was good. He had known a few drug runners back in the camp.

He thought it over for a few minutes. It was dangerous as hell. If they got caught, they’d be dead. But, on the other hand, the pay was good. They’d never have to worry about starving or freezing ever again.

Slowly, he let his hands slide off his eyes. He looked at Pez. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Pez grinned up at him.

* * *

Harper smiled to himself. He had to admit to himself that those next two years had been the most fun he had ever had.

The best part of the whole deal which Sib had given them was that they got their own little glider to fly around in. Her name had been Twinkie. It was a piece of crap. The engines were nearly blown out, the sensors wouldn’t have noticed if an enormous ship were headed right for them, and the slipstream portal had been ripped out by vandals years ago. But it could still fly.

Harper chuckled. Nobody would have guessed that he had learned how to fly enormous Commonwealth starships like the Andromeda by flying a little crappy bucket of bolts named Twinkie.

But he had. Neither him nor Pez had ever flown a ship before, but Sib had told them that that was their own fault. So Seamus had strapped himself in, told Pez to hang on and had let her out full. After jerking them around in wild circles and nearly tearing the roof off of the docking station, Seamus slowly got the hang of driving the old glider.

After flying her for a while, Seamus got to know her small little habits like the back of his hand. The one thing he learned pretty quickly was, if her one remaining engine threatened to overheat, all he had to do was kick it a few times and the lid would pop off and it would start to cool. Not the best way to fix the problem, but it worked.

The actual picking up of the drugs wasn’t the best part, but it was all part of the job. Sib would call them to his headquarters and tell them when and where the next shipment would be waiting for them. They’d hop into Twinkie and fly over there.

Mostly, they’d arrive in the dead of the night when the docking station was mostly empty and silent.

They’d land their precious bucket of bolts and get out. Immediately, darkly dressed men would come over to them and demand to see their papers. Seamus would abruptly interrupt them and tell them that they were here for Sib and that he didn’t have the time to waste talking to them. He hated the delivery boys. They all thought they were the best. Thought they were the best looking and talking things around. He couldn’t stand them. After he would rudely cut them off like that, they’d just stare back and forth between the two boys before slowly starting to move enormous crates of drugs onto the glider. Pez and him helped too if the shipment was big. When all the crates had been stored safely inside Twinkie, Seamus would pull out the small sack of thrones Sib had given him to give to the delivery boys for payment. They’d grab the cash and melt back into the darkness.

Then, Pez and him would jump back into Twinkie and take off. Within a few minutes, they’d be back to their own docking station where they would help unload the crates. Then, they’d head off to catch a few hours of sleep before Sib would call them in to pay them.

It was a good life—until that one fateful run.

As soon as Sib had told them that the station they’d be docking at would be right next to some Nietzschean headquarters, Seamus had refused to go.

But Pez had reasoned with him, telling him that they wouldn’t even have to get out of Twinkie before taking off. The shipment was small. Just some Flash and Nethyl. Not much.

Reluctantly, Seamus had agreed.

* * *

“Okay, Pez. We’re here.” He said, gently landing Twinkie on to the station floor. He glanced out of the window. With expert eyes he scanned the area. Yup, he could see a couple of the delivery boys lurking there in the shadows.

Sib always said that running could give you the best eyesight in the world. Now, Seamus really understood what he had meant. Well, when your life depended on what lurked in the shadows, anybody would learn how to pierce through the darkness and catch the slightest movement.

Pez moved up beside him and looked through the darkness. He nodded.

“I see ‘em. Idiots. Always think that we couldn’t tell apart a crate from their own heads.”

Seamus smiled and turned off the engine.

“Open the airlock, will you?” Pez asked over his shoulder as he made his way towards the door. Seamus pushed the old rusted lever over and he heard the airlock slowly open. Pez hopped out and he heard him arguing with the delivery boys.

“Give me the crates.”

“I’ll need to see some papers first—”

“Screw the papers. Both you and I know that Sib sent me.”

“I’ll still need to see some—”

“I’ll get you the papers later and stuff them up your ass when I do, but until then, get moving. There’s a fucking Nietzschean guard station just down the block from here. If they catch us now, you won’t be alive enough to stuff those papers up your ass and I hate not getting what I came for.” Seamus heard Pez hiss.

He heard the delivery guy snap his fingers and slowly, other men melted out of the darkness and started swiftly moving crates onto the ship. When they were done, they melted back into the darkness and stood there. Seamus shook his head. The dumbasses always thought that nobody could see them. He heard Pez jump back into the ship and he pulled the lever over and the airlock shut.

“Ready to go?”

Pez came and leaned over his chair. “Ready as ever. The faster we get home, the better. The hairs on the back of my neck refuse to sit still.”

Seamus turned the engine on and turned Twinkie around.

They had hardly left the station when a loud whining sound reached their ears.

“What the hell is that?” Seamus asked, his eyes darting around nervously. Pez ran over and peered out the back window.

“Shit. It’s the alarm at the station. The delivery guys must have been caught.”

A small chill ran down his back as he pushed the controls a little further and the old ship flew a little faster. They had to get out of here quickly.

But then—

“Person’s on board the small craft flying away from docking station Delta 16 are instructed to halt immediately and surrender.”

Seamus swallowed hard as Pez swore. They had been spotted.

He pushed the controls a little further and Twinkie shuddered but speeded up.

He glanced at the voice intercom beside him from where the voice had come from.

“Oh, yeah? Says who?”

“Head commander of the docking station you just picked up a load of illegal drugs from. Halt immediately and surrender.”

Seamus gritted his teeth and shoved the controls even further. They started shaking in his hands and the whole ship was rattling.

“Yeah? Well, here’s what I have to say. Fuck off.” He spat, glaring at the voice intercom.

Pez grabbed onto the railing behind the piloting chair, the railing shaking in his hands as the old ship went faster and faster.

“Shay! Just stop. We can’t outrun them. I just looked back. They’ve sent out two swarmers after us. We can’t get away from them. It’s impossible.” Pez yelled over the whining of the emergency siren which had started ringing throughout the ship.

Seamus swore. The engines were overheating.

“We can do this, Pez. I know we can.” Seamus screamed back. “Just trust me.” He pushed the controls as far as they would go, gripping them so hard that his knuckles were going white. The emergency siren screamed louder, nearly drowning out his voice.

“Shay, we can’t—”

“Just trust me, Pez.” He screamed. He glanced over at the engine which was starting to shake. He reached over with his foot and started kicking it.

“Come on, Twinkie. You’ve come through for us before. Come on.” He muttered, trying to watch where he was flying and trying to see where the lid of the engine was at the same time. Finally, the lid flew off. He didn’t even stop to glance at it again. He just pushed the controls further.

“Shay! They’re getting closer. They’re getting ready to fire.” Pez screamed over at him.

He gritted his teeth and yanked Twinkie around just as the swarmers started firing. He madly swerved around the bullets, trying to avoid as many as possible.

But he couldn’t avoid all of them. When the first one hit them, Pez went flying across the entire ship, slamming into the wall. The lid of the engine flew across the floor and Seamus was nearly thrown out of his seat as the whole ship was nearly torn in half.

“Hang on, Pez. We’re nearly there. Just hang on.” He screamed over at the unconscious form of his best friend. “Just hang on.”

* * *

The Nietzschean guard who had lead him all the way down the hallway from the chamber where he had been, roughly threw him through the open door of the courtroom.

He painfully landed on his face, his hands still handcuffed behind his back. He couldn’t help but let out a yelp of pain as the ground made contact with his broken nose.

He was roughly hauled up and thrown into the middle of the room. He slid to a stop and quickly stumbled up. From the past few days, he had learned to always get up before being told to do so. It was always less painful.

He warily gazed around himself. The room was empty except for a long table in front of him where five Nietzscheans sat. They were all gazing at him with that haughty, snobby look they all had on their faces.

He sneered back but as soon as the Nietzschean guard who had followed him inside, gave him a look, he quickly wiped the look off his face. He hated that guard.

For the past few days that guard had had the most fun anybody could have possibly had. He had even told Seamus that numerous times.

He had first been beaten to pulp. Chained to a wall and punched, kicked, bitten, anything he could think of. He had ended up with a wide gash across his forehead (thanks to those damn Nietzschean bone blades. He hated those things.), numerous bruises and cuts on his arms and chest, a black eye and a cut lip. And just when he thought it was over, he had made some stupid remark about the guard being a sissy. He had right away regretted saying it, but it was too late. The guard had grabbed him and had slammed him into the wall, breaking his nose to pieces.

After that, they had torn his shirt off of him, strapped him down onto a table and whipped him. He had known what was coming as soon as he had been dragged to a room with a table in it. He had screamed and tried to run away, but the guards had just laughed that infuriating laugh of theirs and had easily grabbed hold of him and slammed him down onto the table. No matter how hard he struggled, how much he pleaded or how loudly he screamed, they had ignored him, only laughing from time to time. Then, the guard who had slammed him into the wall had put on the tough leather gloves Seamus knew only too well and had cracked the rawhide whip through the air. Seamus bit down hard on his lip, determined not to scream. After the first few lashes, sweat pouring down his face, tears of pain stinging his clenched shut eyes, he couldn’t hold the screams in.

It seemed to last forever. Even when he found himself sliding around the table on his own blood and he could barely hear or feel anything anymore, it went on.

Finally, as if in a faraway dream, he heard a woman’s voice ordering the guard to stop. He didn’t open his eyes and didn’t stop biting his lip while the guard tore the straps off his arms and legs and dragged him off the table and down the hallway to a little cell.

He had been roughly thrown inside, his nose painfully slamming onto the cement floor, but he barely felt it.

Now, as he stood there, glaring at the judges sitting in front of him, he felt a little bit more alive. His back had stopped burning and he could stand up and sit down without screaming out in pain. His nose was still broken, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore. The swelling on his face was slowly going down.

He found himself wondering where Pez was. He hadn’t seen him since they had dragged his still unconscious form off of Twinkie that night.

He started shifting around uncomfortably. He was hungry. And cold. They hadn’t given him his shirt back. All he had on him was a pair of old, filthy pants. He glanced up at the judges but then quickly looked down at the floor. Never make eye contact with any Nietzschean who was within pain inflicting distance.

“State your name.” One of the judges said. It wasn’t even a question. It was a command.

Seamus was about to mouth him off, but his guard gave him another look and cracked his knuckles. Seamus closed his mouth again.

“Seamus Zelazny Harper, my lord.”

“Age?”

“Sixteen, my lord” He replied, his bitter eyes nearly burning holes into the cement floor.

“Born in a camp or the city?”

“A camp, my lord. Number X5.”

He made some notes on the paper in front of her. “Sub division?”

He licked his dry lips. Damn, he wanted some water. “C.”

He made some more notes and then glanced up at him.

“Drug trafficking on this planet is a rather minor, but still punishable offence. I sentence you to a year in jail. No parole before the term has been served.”

Seamus bit his lips to keep his mouth shut. A year? A whole fucking year? He glared at the ground, not daring to look up. God, how he hated them all.

Before he could say anything, the guard grabbed him and walked him out of the room and down the hallway to the row of cells.

He stopped by one, rummaged around in his pockets and pulled out a key. He unlocked the door, opened it and threw Seamus inside the cell. He landed on his knees. He heard the door being slammed shut behind him.

He didn’t even turn around when he heard the door being locked and the guard walking off.

He crawled further into the cell, falling over the sleeping form of another prisoner. He crawled to the corner of the cell, ignoring the stench of urine and death which crept up his nose.

Once he had crammed himself into the corner, he glanced around the cell quickly, and then, satisfied that nobody would harm him for a while, he dropped off to sleep.

* * *

When he woke up, he sleepily looked around the cell. There wasn’t anything in it except for a small hole dug in the corner which reeked of urine and crap. He wrinkled his nose. Oh well. From experience, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to smell it in a few days. He glanced around at the other sleeping inmates lying all around him.

There were three others, asides from him. An old man with white hair and a long tangled beard lay sleeping in the other corner. Two younger men who appeared to be a little older than Seamus lay sleeping on the floor. One of them was snoring.

Seamus slowly sat up and yawned. For a while, the only sounds in the cell were the snoring of his cell mates and the squeaking of a rat somewhere beside him. Seamus hardly noticed either sound. He was used to both.

One by one, the rest of his cell mates woke up. The old man in the corner sat up and glanced over at him. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see him and just wished him a good morning. Seamus, not daring to trust anybody too soon, just continued staring at him.

Then the two sleeping on the floor woke up too. One of them, a rat faced sleazy looking type with black eyes immediately stared at Seamus.

He found his eyes very unsettling and he looked away. The man slowly smiled at him. But something about that smile made a shiver run down his back. The other man turned around and stared at Seamus too, that same smile spreading across his face.

Both of them continued smiling and staring at Seamus, their eyes slowly travelling down his body. Seamus tried not to notice when their grins got wider.

A few hours later, a guard came walking down the hall, pushing an enormous trolley filled with chunks of bread. He reached into the pile and pulled out a few slices and tossed them into the cell. Immediately, the two men leaped forward and grabbed the bread. Seamus too, after a moment’s hesitation jumped up and tried grabbing a piece. He got elbowed in the face for his efforts. Clutching his swelling cheek, he backed off, getting ready for a hungry day ahead. Oh well. He had starved before. He could do it again.

Just then, he heard a small whistle coming from the corner.

It was the old man. He sat there, holding up two pieces of bread. Seamus crept over and took a piece.

“Thanks.” He said, chewing on it.

The man smiled at him. “Conchikva.” He broke off a piece of the bread and held it out on one finger. Out of the darkness, a rat scurried towards him, grabbed the bread crumb and just as quickly, vanished into the darkness.

Seamus stopped chewing and frowned at him. What the hell did he just say? “What?”

The man looked at him. “Fera kurichia netva Dyra?”

Seamus stared. “I’m really not getting it.”

The man laughed. “You don’t speak Dyrillian?”

He shook his head. “Never heard of it.”

The man smiled. “Ah, so you are one of the silent ones.”

“Silent ones?”

“Yes.” He held up his hand. “You will understand in time. For now, just eat.”

* * *

The man’s name turned out to be Daxus. He was in there serving time for a terrorist attack. He had blown up a Nietzschean headquarter somewhere. He was there for life. Not because he was a menace, he explained, but because they had to make an example out of him.

Seamus spent his entire day talking to Daxus. The man had been sitting in that jail cell for 33 years already. It might not have seemed that way, but the man knew more about the world than Seamus did.

The only two thorns in his sides were the other two men in the cell. Rodney and Sliver. They were both murderers. A few years ago, they’d chopped up some old sap who wouldn’t give them the money he had supposedly owed them.

Seamus couldn’t stand them. They just sat there the entire day, staring at his every more. He hated the way their eyes were constantly roaming around his body. He loathed the way they would chuckle to themselves when he had to go to the bathroom over the tiny little hole in the corner of the cell.

He ignored it for most part until one night, he couldn’t.

He woke up from where he lay in his little corner when he felt a hand moving around at the top of his pants. His heart leaped up to his throat and he squirmed.

“Fuck. He’s awake.” He heard Sliver hiss.

“Doesn’t matter. You keep him quiet. We’ll still get it done.” He heard Rodney’s rough voice.

Panic seized him and he tried to squirm out of Rodney’s grasp. A hand suddenly grabbed his mouth and he felt himself being turned around so he was face down on the floor.

He tried to scream but his voice was muffled by Sliver’s hand.

He started shaking as he felt Rodney straddle him. He screamed again and bit down hard on Sliver’s hand.

He heard Sliver’s sharp painful intake of breath just before he was punched in the face. His face slammed onto the cement floor.

“You ever do that again and I’ll beat your face in, got it?” he heard Sliver hiss as a hand covered his mouth again.

He desperately tried to squirm away but Rodney’s strong thighs prevented him from moving anywhere.

He started shaking even more, terrified sobs racking through him. Damn it. He had to get away. Damn it. No!

He felt Rodney’s hand slowly going down his still painful back and down towards his pants. A moan of pain tore out of his throat.

“Hurry up, Rodney. I can’t hold his mouth shut like this forever.” Sliver said.

He felt Rodney slowly pulling his pants down.

“We’ll be done in a minute. Just one minute. You can hold out for that long, now can’t you?” he heard Rodney hiss into his ear. He felt his warm breath on his cheeks.

Oh, God! Oh, God! He had to get them away. He had to get himself away. Damn it. This couldn’t be happening.

* * *

Hours later, Seamus woke up. He was still lying face down in his corner. He glanced around. Sliver and Rodney were lying on the floor in front of him, snoring loudly.

He tried to curl himself up into a little ball, but as soon as he moved, a flash of pain coursed through his already battered and bruised body. He bit down on his lip to keep from screaming and slowly sat up.

That day, he refused to eat. Daxus brought him a piece of bread, but Seamus refused to eat it and didn’t meet the older man’s eyes.

* * *

Daxus sighed. He knew what had happened. It always happened. He went back to his corner, looking over at the younger man who was staring at the floor, shame burning in his blue eyes. He would get over it. They always did.

* * *

Two nights later, Seamus woke up again in the middle of the night and felt Rodney’s hand starting to slide down his pants.

An involuntary shudder ran down his back. He closed his eyes and forced himself to stop trembling. This time, he was ready.

He waited until he heard Sliver asking Rodney if he was awake. He heard Rodney answer back no and then heard Sliver relax and drift off to sleep again.

Seamus silently allowed himself to take a small breath. So far, so good. All he had to do was wait until Sliver was asleep.

Ignoring the spasms of revolt which coursed up and down his body as Rodney slowly pulled his pants down, Seamus strained to listen to Sliver’s breathing pattern. Slowly, he recognized the sounds of his snoring. Sliver was asleep.

He silently waited until he felt Rodney starting to straddle him. Then, he rolled over suddenly and sharply kicked Rodney’s knees out from under him.

Rodney fell forward, giving out a small yelp of surprise before slamming onto the floor of the cell. Seamus twisted around, kicking his legs out from underneath Rodney’s heavy body. Then, he jumped onto Rodney’s back, turned the bigger man over and grabbed him around the throat with both of his hands.

He felt Rodney’s hands come up to his throat, desperately trying to rip his hands from his throat. But he wouldn’t let go. He just squeezed harder, gritting his teeth as his arms screamed out in protest. Rodney started making small choking noises as he struggled for breath. He squeezed harder, hate burning in his eyes.

Suddenly, he felt somebody loosening his hands from around Rodney’s neck.

It was Daxus. The old man leaned down and felt Rodney’s neck.

“He’s dead.” He said, sounding completely indifferent.

Seamus started shaking as he slowly stood up. He kicked Rodney’s lifeless body out of his corner and collapsed in it.

He was gasping for breath, staring at the body with wild eyes.

He’d never killed anybody before. Nearly killed somebody, yes. But never like this. He’d never murdered another person before.

But then, he quickly pushed aside the guilt.

Rodney had deserved it. Yes, he had deserved.

He kept on repeating that to himself, even as the guilt seeped back.

Suddenly, he found himself sobbing, tears running down his face.

He felt Daxus come and embrace him quietly, rocking him back and forth as he wept. He buried his face in the old man’s shoulder, sobbing.

“He deserved it.” He sobbed.

Daxus just continued rocking him back and forth, stroking his back.

“I know. I know.”

* * *

The next day, the guard came and took Rodney’s body away. No questions asked. Fact was, they didn’t care. If the prisoners killed each other, they couldn’t care less. It only made room for more of them.

That same day, Sliver got transferred to another cell. Seamus didn’t know why or how, but he didn’t care.

That night, a new inmate got brought to their cell. The other side of the prison had gotten too crowded, so some inmates were being moved to this side of the prison.

When the guard opened the door and shoved in the thin, dark haired prisoner, Seamus didn’t even recognize him.

But as soon as he turned around and looked at Seamus, he recognized the pale blue eyes.

“Pez?” he breathed, staring up at his friend.

Pez blinked, staring at him, confused, until suddenly, he recognized him. “Shay?” he asked.

Pez stumbled forward and Seamus caught him in a huge hug. The two friends embraced each other, smiles on their faces.

It had been half a year since they had last seen each other.

As Seamus looked his friend over, he saw that his friend had probably been off no worse than him. A bruise still darkened one of his cheek bones and there was a deep gash across one of his eyes. But other than that, the smile was still the same.

“Shit, man, it’s great to see you.” Seamus grinned.

Pez lightly punched him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I’d been going crazy trying to get transferred to this side. When it started getting too crowded, I asked if I could be moved over here. I just got one dirty look, but then they agreed. Said something about two inmates from here having left this morning anyway.” Pez grinned at him.

Seamus couldn’t stop smiling. He had his best friend back.

“Hey, Pez, so, you ain’t planning to run out on me any time soon, eh?”

Pez looked at him. “Nah. I’m sticking right by your side, no matter what and whether you like it or not. I promise.”

Seamus grinned.


	3. Chapter 3

The last half of their prison term was indescribably better than that first half had been. Daxus was an amazing story teller and kept them entertained during the day. And at night, after a few weeks, Seamus managed to sleep through the entire night without waking up, his heart in his throat. Things calmed down considerably.

But then things hyped up again when one morning, right after the bread had been delivered, Pez handed Daxus his piece.

Daxus nodded at him. “Feria.”

Pez stared. “What?”

Seamus glanced from where he was sitting, munching on his bread.

“Oh, yeah. That’s some screwed up language Daxus has. He uses it sometimes when he forgets I have no clue what he’s talking about. Dyri something or other.” He said, his mouth full.

Pez continued to stare at Daxus.

“It’s called Dyrillia, Seamus.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Pez frowned. “What’s it called?”

“Dyrillia.”

“Hey, I heard a couple of guys on the other side of the prison talking about that. It’s some special language the humans made up, ain’t it?”

Daxus nodded. “We prefer to call it human common. It was started years ago by some inmates in another prison somewhere on earth. They made it up just so they could talk comfortably by themselves without the Nietzscheans understanding a word they were saying.”

“Cool. Is it hard to learn?”

Daxus shook his head. “It’s a relatively simple language. No tenses whatsoever except for the present. For example, if want to say you went to jail three years ago, you’d say, I go to jail three years back.”

Seamus snorted. “Sounds weird.”

Pez was staring at Daxus. “Weird, maybe, but it’s a great idea.” He said carefully, then he suddenly turned to Seamus. “Shay, listen. If we could speak Dyrillian, just think of what we could do with it. We could talk to each other whenever we wanted and about whatever we wanted.”

Seamus stopped chewing and stared at Pez. He knew that look on his friends face.

He sighed. “Well, we’ve got six months left of sitting here doing nothing. We might as well learn something while we’re at it.”

* * *

It took them a month, but by the end of it, both of them were fluent in Dyrillian. Daxus had to admit that Seamus was nearly better at it than he was.

One day, while they were sitting there in the cell, Pez humming something and Daxus staring off into space, they heard a commotion from down the hall.

Pez stopped humming and Seamus stood up and went to stand in front of the bars. He clutched the bars and craned his neck, trying to see down the hallway.

“Berich kia nerva derika ba?” Pez asked him. (Can you see anything?)

Seamus shook his head. Just then, a Nietzschean came into view, dragging a screaming man behind him. The man was struggling to get away and tried grabbing onto the cell bars as he was dragged by. The Nietzschean had hold of the back of his shirt and was dragging him down the hallway.

“Kara vendri baus ka mey.” Seamus said, staring at the prisoner as he was dragged by, screaming. (Just some prisoner going for punishment.)

Pez stood up and went to stand next to the bars with Seamus to watch the man being dragged by.

As the man went by them, he turned to them and stared at them with wild, terrified eyes, sobbing with fear.

“Keria meka! Keria meka!” he cried. (Help me! Help me!)

Seamus raised an eyebrow. The man could speak Dyrillian.

Daxus too went and stood by the bars. He stared at the man with sad eyes.

“Crystallia Roxia.” He said to him. The man stopped struggling for an instant and stared at Daxus.

Pez turned to Daxus too. “What?”

Daxus briefly smiled. “I said ‘long live hope’.”

Pez continued staring at him. “A guy is being brought in for torture and you tell him ‘long live hope’?”

“When you have nothing left, when you are all alone, and when you feel that life is no longer worth living because you have nothing left, there is one thing which you do have. And that one thing is hope. As long as there is life, there is hope.” Daxus said quietly. “If people have nothing to fight with, they still have hope to fight with.”

Seamus tore his eyes away from the prisoner and stared at Daxus.

None of them said a word as they continued staring after the prisoner who had calmed down after hearing Daxus’ words, but whose terrified sobs still drifted over to them.

Seamus clutched the cell bars.

“Crystallia Roxia.” He whispered to himself. “Crystallia Roxia.”

* * *

Seamus stumbled into the bar, one arm around the blond haired hooker he had run into a few hours ago.

He walked through the doorway, nearly falling onto her. She laughed.

“Had a little too much to drink, Shay?” she asked, laughing.

He smirked at her. “Nah. I could down a few more.” He gave her a cocky grin. “And I’m told that the drunker I get, the feistier I get too.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Well, in that case, let’s go see if Charlie likes us today.”

Seamus laughed. “Baby, with those breasts, any male on the planet will like you, trust me.” He slurred.

She laughed again.

He shook his head, trying to clear the fuzziness inside. There was something he had to do right now. He couldn’t remember for the life of him what it was though. Oh yeah! He had to find Pez. The new shipment of drug supplies which had come in just the other day had turned out to be crap. The new batch of Flash he had to have whipped up by tomorrow had been impossible to piece together from the few bottles of good stuff which he had to weed out from the crap the guy had delivered him.

* * *

After serving their prison term, Pez and him had gone back to the city. Both of them had refused to go back to running, even though Sib had tried to convince them to get back into it. They had gone back to their old home which had lain in ruins since they had last left it.

For the months that followed, they lived off of the money they had left over from their running days, and both of them learned how to cope with how their lives had changed while in prison. Pez had turned to making as many dirty deals as possible, ripping off, bribing and blackmailing anybody with money. Sometimes Seamus would go along with him, but mostly, he was too drunk to notice.

Seamus had turned to alcohol to get rid of all the messed up feelings inside of him.

Alcohol, women and sex were how he lived.

But when their money ran out, they had to find a different way to make a living. Pez had immediately thought of getting back into the drug trade. Seamus had refused, until Pez had explained that they wouldn’t do the running now. They’d have their own little business. Pez would get the orders, Seamus would make the drugs, and Pez would deliver them.

After thinking it over, Seamus had agreed. From his two year running stint, Seamus knew how to make every single drug on the planet.

Word of their business spread through the city like wildfire. Pez suddenly found people trekking from miles away to find them. Not only the locals anymore.

And the money was slowly pouring in.

* * *

Seamus collapsed onto the bar stool, the blond sitting down next to him. He fuzzily ordered a beer. The blond laughed and started running her hands up and down his chest.

“Let’s go somewhere more private.” She whispered into his ear.

Seamus grinned. “Not now, sweetie. Gotta wait for Pez to show up first.”

She started kissing his ear. “Who’s Pez?”

He moved over slightly and grabbed the beer Charlie shoved at him. “Just a friend of mine.”

“Dirty business?”

“Kinda.”

He glanced around the bar, trying to get her hands away from the dangerous parts of him. He was too drunk to properly control himself. There was no way he was gonna screw her here, in front of everybody.

Where the hell was Pez? He looked around and suddenly saw his friend walking towards him, laughing and talking to other people along the way.

“Shay!”

Seamus waved him over.

Pez came and sat down next to him and ordered a beer from Charlie. He glanced at the hooker, giving her a brief nod.

Seamus managed to disentangle himself from her.

“Keri bernaia.” He slurred, trying to clear his mind as he gulped down the beer. (I gotta talk to you.)

“Scherk iachki berna?” Pez asked, giving him a worried look while grabbing his own beer. (About what?)

“Scherk da richkia.” (About the drugs.)

“Perf ka ria gernachia?” (Did you get the shipment?)

“Kiop gernachia neri ba.” (It’s not the shipment.)

Pez frowned at him over his beer glass.

“Scherk da richkia?” (About the drugs?)

Seamus smiled. “Bura da retchka per, fura gler.” (That’s what I just said, deaf man.)

Pez chuckled. “Merda gerchia bura tera?” (What about them?)

“Dera querta mento.” (They’re crap.)

“Mento?” Pez’s eyebrow shot up. (Crap?)

Seamus nodded. “Pera derto gerschkia menia orega cura terop.” (I can’t make the Flash we need for tomorrow)

Pez swore and started drumming his fingers on the counter. He ordered himself another beer.

The hooker was started to nibble on his ears and her hands were starting to really wander. Seamus grabbed her hands and gently pushed her off.

“Not now, sweetie. Wait until I’m good and drunk, okay?” She frowned at him with pouty lips but promptly backed off.

He turned to Pez. “I can go see Sib tomorrow. He’ll probably give us the stuff I need.”

Pez stopped drumming his fingers and grinned at Seamus. “Shay, you’re a fucking genius when you want to be, you know that?”

Seamus grinned at him but stopped smiling when he suddenly felt the hookers hands on his pants. He grabbed her hands.

“Okay, okay, honey. We can go now.” He said, downing the rest of his beer and giving Pez a nod before disappearing through the back door.

* * *

The next morning, he woke up with a splitting headache. Damn hangover, he grumbled as he looked around himself. His shirt and pants were lying on the floor beside him and he was lying on a bed he had never seen before in his life. The blond hooker was quietly sleeping beside him.

He softly pushed himself off the bed. He leaned over and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek before rummaging through his pants and pulling out a few thrones which he stuck into her hand.

Quickly pulling on his shirt and pants, he opened the door of the dingy apartment and quietly walked out, yawning and praying for his headache to go away.

* * *

When he arrived at Sib’s place, he gave the customary three knocks on the door. A big burly man opened the door and frowned down at him, but within seconds, recognition spread across his face.

“Shay! Damn it’s good to see you. The boss man has been asking about you.”

Seamus gave him a grin. The guy was one of his regular crystal buyers.

“How’ve you been Curly?”

The guy nodded his head happily. “Life’s pretty damn good. Got my beer from Charlie and my crystal from you. Life couldn’t be better.” He lead him down a dirty hallway where one single lightbulb hung off a chain. He opened a busted door which barely hung on its hinges.

“Boss man’s in there.”

Seamus gave Curly a brief smile and walked into the room.

Sib was sitting at his desk, mulling over some figures on a piece of paper. He glanced up.

“Shay! Good to see you. Sit down.”

Seamus perched on the filthy chair which sat in front of the desk.

“So,” Sib said, looking up at him and shuffling some papers around. “Is this a social call or a business call?”

“Business.”

Sib nodded. “My favorite kind. What can I do for you?”

“I need to get a shipment of Flash ingredients from you. Just a few milligrams of propyl, crustana and some triana. The shipment Pez got the other day was such crap that I can’t piece even a milligram of Flash together from it.”

Sib nodded. “When do you need these things by?”

“As soon as possible. The stuff was supposed to be ready by today, but I can push it off. I know the people who want it. They’re pretty lenient.”

Sib nodded, a smile spreading across his face. “No problem, Shay. I owe you and Pez big time anyway. The only reason I’m still in business and not doing hard time like you two did was because you didn’t rat me out. I’ll always owe you one.”

Seamus smiled at him. “In that case, my life will be pretty good from now on.”

Sib laughed and walked towards the door. “Let me go see about those ingredients right now. I might have some in stock right now.”

* * *

Seamus leapt through the window of the basement room where Pez and him still lived. Pez was standing by the table on which all of Seamus’s drug supplies and tools lay. The mattress still lay in the corner and a small old stove stood beside it. They never used it to cook things on, they just used it for warmth on cold nights. A lone lightbulb swung from the chain it was hooked on, the only light in the small room.

Pez looked up from where he was writing something down on a piece of paper.

“Hey. I got some more orders. A couple of newbies want some Flash, and Charlie would like some Nethyl.”

Seamus nodded and went over to the table. “By when?”

“They said they didn’t care, but the newbies sounded a little edgy.”

Seamus sat down in front of his table and swept aside some empty bottles and used needles and eye droppers which littered the surface. He rummaged around in one of the drawers and pulled out a bottle labelled Triana. He carefully measured out the required 17 milligrams and mixed it into a glass jar where the rest of the ingredients for Flash were already there. He gently took the jar and shook it. He held it up to the light and shook it some more. He frowned at it. It was too white. Taking the eye dropper again, he added two more milligrams of Triana to the mixture. Shaking it again, he held it up to the light. He smiled. Perfect.

He carefully put the bottle aside and grabbed another one.

Pez glanced over at him. “I’ll run over to the bar and buy us some dinner.”

“Sounds good.” Seamus answered, barely looking up from where he was measuring out 17 milligrams of Triana again. “Tell Charlie I say hi.”

Pez grinned at him and leapt out of the window, disappearing down the street.

* * *

Seamus walked into the dimly lit bar and sat down on a bar stool. “Hey, Charlie.” He said, nodding at the bartender.

He rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out the vial of Nethyl he had thrown together the night before.

“Here, Charlie. The Nethyl you wanted.”

Charlie eagerly walked over to him and was about to rip the vial out of his hand when Seamus yanked it back, out of his reach, and instead, held out his other, empty, hand towards the bartender.

Charlie sighed but still reached into his apron pocket and pulled out a few thrones. He slowly counted out the right amount and handed it to Seamus. He smiled and stuck the money into his pocket and lightly tossed the drug over to Charlie.

Charlie grabbed it and stuffed it into his pocket before turning around to the taps.

“A beer, Shay?”

“Sure.”

While he sat there, sipping his beer and looking around for any available hookers, he noticed a guy sitting next to him. He looked him up and down.

The guy was dressed in filthy clothes, his hair long and tangled.

But he didn’t look any worse that he did, Seamus thought, sipping his beer.

Although having a good, regular job brought in more money than begging and stealing had, Seamus and Pez still looked like filthy street rats. Their clothes were crappy and dirty and they were still stick thin. They still didn’t manage to get food every day. They had the money, but not everybody had the food.

He smiled. Such irony. No matter if you were rich or poor, you still had to go hungry. Man, what a messed up place.

He glanced at the guy again. He was basically lying on the filthy bar top, three empty rum glasses sitting in front of him. Yup, this guy was good and drunk.

He let his eyes wander around the dimly lit bar again. He spied a brunette hooker standing in the corner, staring around with hopeful eyes.

He was about to call her over when he felt his pockets and realized they were empty except for the money Charlie had just given him. Nope, that had to buy him and Pez dinner tomorrow. He couldn’t waste it on a hooker. Damn.

The guy beside him slowly lifted his head up and called Charlie over.

“Kerischia bena trubes.” He said fuzzily, swaying in his seat.

Seamus’s head snapped around and he stared at the guy. Charlie was staring at him too, frowning in confusion.

“What the hell did he say?”

Seamus didn’t take his eyes off the guy. How did this low life know how to speak Dyrillian? Nobody around here knew how.

“The guy wants another rum.” Seamus said absentmindedly to Charlie. He reached over and shook the guy’s shoulder.

“Mena, isti bura kerit Dyra?” he asked, keeping his voice low. (Hey, how do you know Dyrillian?)

The guy turned his head and stared at him, a small smile spreading across his face.

“I’m sorry, laddie. Didn’t mean to start spouting it like that. When I’m drunk I forget.”

Seamus shook his head, still staring at him. “No, I mean, how do you know how to speak it?”

The guy laughed. “I was taught, my boy.”

“By who? Nobody around here can speak it.”

He smiled. “The cult taught me.”

“What cult?” he asked, frowning at him. Was this guy totally drunk? But no, that had been genuine Dyrillian. He couldn’t have faked it.

“You ain’t never heard of the cult before?”

He shook his head, taking a sip of his beer. “Can’t say I have.”

“Oh, so you’re one of the silent ones, huh?”

That statement convinced Seamus that this guy wasn’t a phoney. That had been the same way Daxus had described him.

“Well, my boy. You’ve been missing out. Yup, yup. Missing out.”

“On what? Would you fucking start talking straight?”

“Sorry. Bit drunk, matey. Bear with me. There’s this cult. Enormous by now, spread round the whole world. Called Crystallia. Biggest cult anybody’s ever seen.”

Seamus raised an eyebrow. A cult named hope?

“Started by some old guy whose sitting in jail right now. Some terrorist attack or something. You wouldn’t know him.”

Seamus tried to hide his grin. So that’s what Daxus had been doing before his attack. The old geezer had made a cult. He glanced at the drunk but didn’t feel like getting into the details on how he had sat in a jail cell with the creator of the largest cult on earth for one whole year.

“What does this cult do?”

“Oh, all kinds of things. Mostly we try to over throw the Nietzschies. Small revolts, demonstrations, protests. That sort of thing. But mostly, it’s for spreading hope.”

“Hope, huh?”

“That’s right. Small thing for the people in it. It gives ‘em some hope that they’re part of something like that. They like the feeling it gives ‘em. Feelings of power which they ain’t never had before.”

Seamus stared at the guy, having forgotten about his beer. Slowly, an idea was starting to form in his mind. Here was the perfect way to get back at them.

For the years of torture, abuse and oppression they had thrown at him. For having killed Osim and so many other people he had cared about. For having pulled him through hell countless times.

He smiled. A bitter, hard smile. Here was a way to get back at them. Revenge. What a sweet, sweet word.

He turned back to the drunk. “So,” he inquired, trying to sound casual. “How can a person join this cult?”


	4. Chapter 4

Seamus sat on the mattress, leaning against the stove and clutching his arm, trying to keep from screaming. Pez was lying on the mattress by his feet, also clutching his arm and moaning quietly.

Pez looked up and stared at him, a hard smile on his face.

“It’s all worth it, Shay.” He said, between clenched teeth.

Seamus smiled back, hatred burning in his eyes. Oh, how he loved revenge. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he kept on smiling.

* * *

After the old drunk had told him where the next Crystallia meeting would be, Seamus had taken off like a shot, forgetting about his beer, and racing across the dark streets, tripping over drunks along the way and ducking out of the night patrols way as he ran home. As soon as he had hurled himself through the window of their home, he had madly started blabbering his idea to Pez.

Pez had been sitting on the mattress, quietly smoking a cigarette. He had wordlessly stared at him, a small smile on his face, obviously thinking he was drunk. But as it slowly dawned on him that he was being serious, he had stopped smiling and had sat up straight.

When he was done talking, he collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.

Pez stared at him. “Shay, I think that this is your best idea yet. Over all these years, this has got to be the winner.”

Seamus sat up, still grinning. “Your bet your ass it is. Now, hand me that smoke.”

Still smiling, Pez handed him the cigarette.

* * *

The next night, they had gone to the meeting at an old abandoned building that looked almost exactly like their own house did.

“Only, ours smells better.” Pez had whispered, causing Seamus to laugh so hard he had nearly fallen into people coming through the door behind him.

They had been amazed by the sheer number of people who had showed up. And the kinds of people who had showed. Not only street bums and drunks and druggies, but also business men. A lot of their richer customers were there, calmly sitting amongst filthy street urchins and hookers, talking to them as if this were the crowd they sat with every day. It was amazing. And what was even more amazing was how all of these people spoke Dyrillian. Fluently too.

“Holy crap, this is amazing.” Pez breathed, staring around, wide eyed.

Then the leaders had stood up and the room had gone silent. A few coughs here and there, but other than that, all eyes turned towards the front where three older people stood, smiling and looking at the crowd.

They were wearing long black robes, covering their clothing, but from their hair and the way they held their heads, Seamus knew that they weren’t street bums.

The person standing in the middle stepped forward and smiled at the crowd. Then he started to speak. Seamus wasn’t surprised to hear him speaking in Dyrillian. Not one word of common.

“Welcome people of Earth. I welcome you all with open arms. The oppressed, the poor, the hurt, the hungry, the rich who are still deeply scarred. I welcome you all. Tonight’s meeting is not only for discussing the protest which we have organized to occur in three weeks, but to also welcome two of our newest members.” He held out his arms and nodded at Pez and Seamus.

Seamus gulped. What the hell were they going to do to them?

A second later, he found out. Pez was already walking through the crowd of people, dragging him along behind him.

“Come on, Shay. This is what we both want, remember?” Pez whispered.

Seamus swallowed his fear and bravely walked through the people. The old hatred had seeped back into him and made him stronger. Oh yes, this was what he wanted.

After they had walked up to the front, the leaders helped them up onto the platform they were standing on.

“State your names, still silent ones.”

Pez stared at him, having lost his ability to speak. Seamus rolled his eyes. God damned idiot. Always running into things head first, only thinking about what he was doing years after he had done it. He sighed. Well, that’s why he was here. To bail Pez out of all the crap he ran them into.

“Seamus Harper.” He said, giving the man a smile. Pez still hadn’t found his voice. Seamus pointed at him. “And his name’s Pez Madden.”

The man smiled at both of them gently. Seamus saw some of the fear leave Pez’s face. Good, now both of them were ready for whatever happened.

“The welcoming ceremony is relatively simple. You’ll take a few oaths, you’ll get the mark, and then you will join the people again. You will no longer be silent.”

Seamus stared at him, keeping the smile on his face. Oath? Mark? What the hell was the guy talking about? Oh well, at least they wouldn’t be silent anymore. Whatever the hell that meant. Way to go, us.

The man held up his right hand, making his middle finger and thumb connect in a circle and keeping his other three fingers straight.

“This is our signal.” He said.

Both Pez and him twisted their fingers around until they had their hands the same way. Seamus smiled at Pez. He had a feeling everything was going to be alright.

The man shuffled a few papers around and cleared his throat.

“Do you swear to fight for the freedom of your home planet?”

“We—” Seamus started, but then seeing Pez’s open mouth, staring at the guy in shock, he kicked him. Pez closed his mouth and blinked a few times.

“We do.” They both said, keeping their fingers absolutely still.

“Do you swear to fight for the freedom of your people?”

“We do.”

“Do you swear to willingly sacrifice your own lives in order to achieve this freedom?”

Seamus’s eyes glittered bitterly. How sweet revenge tasted. He didn’t care about the consequences, he didn’t care what would happen next. All he wanted was revenge.

“We do.”

The man nodded and put the papers down. He slowly moved his hand closer to Seamus’s and gently touched the tips of his three outstretched fingers with his own. He then did the same to Pez.

“This is our secret handshake. It is a way to greet other members and to identify each other.”

He put his hand down and cleared his throat, giving them a smile.

“Now that you have sworn yourselves in and your voices are now eternally part of Crystallia, you are no longer silent. You have sworn to give us your voice to fight for the freedom which we all want.”

Seamus smiled. He was liking this better and better every minute.

The man turned around and addressed the crowd, raising his hand again.

He held his hand up for the crowd to see, his fingers twisted in that strange signal.

“For freedom!”

The crowd immediately held up their hands in the same signal and echoed his words. “For freedom.”

“For freedom.” Seamus whispered, tasting the sweet words.

This is for you, Osim.

And for me too.

* * *

Hours later, Seamus and Pez weren’t feeling as excited as they had been.

They had been given the mark.

At first, he hadn’t understood what they were talking about, but after glancing around and seeing the few people who were sitting there with no shirts on, he saw what he meant.

On all of their right arms, there were three small black stars, burned into their skin in the shape of a triangle. Each star was at one of the tips of the triangle.

Seamus stared at the mark. His mind was still so full of the oaths which were ramming around in his mind, that he wasn’t even aware of being gently pushed into a chair and having his filthy shirt being pushed up. Even when he heard the hiss of the glowing red iron being brought closer to him, feeling the heat on his face, he was still mumbling the word ‘freedom.’

But when the iron first made contact with his skin and he felt his skin burning and smelt the burning flesh, he was shocked back to the present. He closed his eyes and bit his lip, determined not to scream. He groped around with his left hand, searching for something to hang onto. He felt a hand and dug his nails into it, sweat pouring down his face.

He didn’t let go of the hand, even when he felt blood dripping from his fingers.

He moaned in pain and tried not to smell that smell. It reminded him of how his cousins had smelt when he had to burn their infested bodies. Man, how long ago that seemed. It didn’t seem like it had only been four years.

Finally, it was over.

He kept his eyes clenched shut, small hisses of pain coming out of his mouth, when he heard a gentle voice coaxing him back to reality.

“Hey, Shay. It’s okay. It’s over. You lived through it. Shit, man. You fucking buried your fingers in my hand. Crap, that hurt. Shay. Open your eyes. It’s okay. It’s over.”

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He gingerly took his hand off of Pez’s hand which was covered in blood. He wiped the sweat off his face, still gasping for air.

“Sorry about the hand, Pez.”

Pez shrugged. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.” He smiled.

Seamus laughed, remembering the first time Pez had told him that so long ago.

Slowly, he pushed himself off the chair and Pez sat down in it. Seamus glanced at him. He was the only person in the room who could see the small glint of fear in his friends eyes.

After Pez’s sleeve had been rolled up, he clenched his eyes shut and bit down hard on his lip. Seamus saw the glowing red iron slowly being brought closer to his arm, the he smelt the smell of burnt flesh as the first star was burnt into Pez’s arm. Pez hissed in pain.

Wordlessly, Seamus held out his hand. Pez grabbed hold of it, clenching it so hard that blood started seeping through his white fingers.

Seamus didn’t move away.

* * *

Pez moaned. “Man, I want a beer.” He said, gingerly sitting up, being careful not to use his right arm.

Seamus smiled. “Me too. But it ain’t like we could walk from here to the bar. Everybody would be asking us why we were moaning in pain and looking like hell.”

He nodded.

Seamus stared down at his arm. The three black stars looked up to him. The skin around the stars was still burnt and red and swollen. But it looked good. He grinned. They had really done it.

They were going to get their revenge.

He slowly held out his right arm, grimacing from the pain, but ignoring it. He slowly made the signal with his hands.

Pez looked up and very gingerly brought up his right hand too. They gently touched their three upright fingertips together in the secret handshake of the cult.

“This is for Osim.” Seamus whispered. And for me, he added silently, remembering the countless whippings, the beatings, the laughter.

“This is for my parents.” Pez whispered too, both of their eyes staring at their touching fingers.

* * *

Seamus gently landed the little glider on the ground. Pez was leaning over the back of the piloting chair, staring out.

“Wow. Never seen so many people in my life.” He said sarcastically, looking around at the empty darkness.

Seamus smiled. They had just landed at a docking station near a Nietzschean ammunitions factory.

This had been the revolt which had been talked about in earnest for the past few weeks.

At first, it had seemed impossible to organize. Nobody had a glider, nobody could fly the thing if they had one, and nobody had the explosives they needed. It had seemed hopeless until Pez had stepped up and volunteered to find the glider. Seamus had right away said he’d fly it.

The very next day, they had gone to Sib and asked to be loaned a small glider for just two days. Sib had made them swear to bring it back in one piece and to keep it away from any Nietzscheans.

Well, Seamus thought as he turned off the engines and opened the airlock, Sib would probably get his first wish, but not the second.

Silently, a hoard of people ran up to the glider, all wearing dark clothes. They ran to the airlock and started hauling out the huge boxes of explosives which Pez was handing them. It reminded Seamus of their drug running days.

He pushed himself out of his chair and walked over to the door. He lightly jumped to the ground and secured the door again.

“Keria benacha?” He whispered to Pez, tying a black bandanna around his shining blond hair. (All the boxes out?)

“Tescha.” Pez whispered back, pulling the bandanna over a lock of hair Seamus had forgotten. (Yeah.)

They walked up to the crowd of silent, dark people.

Seamus held up his hand in the signal. Wordlessly, the first man came forward and did the signal too. Silently, their fingertips touched in the secret handshake.

“Ureka.” The man nodded. (Hello.)

“Ureka.” He answered, keeping his voice low.

The man looked around, his eyes scanning the darkness.

“Peria nescha kuru teri werta munasca membo ureta serak.” He whispered. (Let’s get to work. We’ll hide the explosives under the factory, you and your friend stay here and light the fuse when I say.)

Seamus nodded. It was playing time.

The men all started opening the boxes, taking out armloads of the dynamite and swiftly running through the darkness towards the factory.

Pez and him crouched down behind some bushes, watching the dark figures running around. They were so quiet that Seamus couldn’t even hear them.

Pez squeezed his hand as the men started running back towards them.

“It’s playing time.” He whispered, his pale eyes glinting in the darkness. Seamus smiled bitterly. Oh, it was playing time alright.

He found himself regretting the fact that there weren’t any Nietzscheans inside the factory at the moment. But as Pez had reasoned, it was better to destroy their weapons rather than them. Without their weapons, they were powerless. Seamus hadn’t agreed with that last point, but he had begrudgingly agreed that it was a start.

Finally, the man who had spoken to them ran over to them, crouching behind a bunch of bushes.

There was a hard smile on his face.

“Turaka bena.” (We’re ready.)

Pez dug around in his pocket and pulled out a lighter.

Seamus took it as the man handed him the end of the black fuse. He smiled as he flicked the lighter on. Pez was smiling too, revenge flickering across his face as the shadows danced across his face. Seamus’s eyes glinted bitterly as he heard that laughter in his mind. That eternal laugher. God, how he hated them.

Slowly, he stuck the fuse into the lighter. With a hiss, the fuse lit and the bright flame started racing swiftly down the wire. They’d stop laughing soon enough.

Seamus jumped up, throwing the lighter into his pocket and started madly running towards the glider, Pez at his heels.

He ripped open the airlock and they leapt in. But just before he slammed the door shut, he turned back, the bandanna still firmly tied around his head. Pez paused too and stared at the factory.

Suddenly, starting with a quiet rumble and then growing louder, the entire building exploded with a deafening blast. Flames, dust, bricks and boxes flew through the air, some even hitting the glider as the air around them echoed from the explosion. Seamus covered his eyes and ducked as a piece of plywood came hurling towards them. It hit the side of the glider and fell onto the ground. He slowly uncovered his eyes and stared at the burning building, all the sides slowly collapsing in as the black walls crumbled. In the distance, he could see the forms of Nietzscheans madly running around, screaming in rage.

Seamus smiled. The bastards weren’t laughing anymore.

Suddenly, he leaned forward, not caring whether they saw him or not. Keeping a hand clutching the handle to keep him from falling, dust still flying through the air, he stared at the running Nietzscheans.

“Crystallia Roxia!” he screamed, not giving a damn whether they heard him or not. Pez cheered madly and laughed.

Seamus’s cry echoed over the empty ground, merging with the dust and the flames which licked at the crumbled walls.

“Crystallia Roxia!” he screamed again, before giving another cheer and then leaping into the glider. Pez gave another wild cheer and slammed the airlock shut.

Seamus leapt over the back of the piloting chair and turned the engines on.

Seconds later, they were flying through the air, back home.

But through the black night, through the dust and the flames and the loud crackling of the burning wood and the enraged screams of the Nietzscheans, which they had left behind, that cry still echoed.

* * *

Two weeks later, there was a street demonstration. It was right here too, so there was no need to go to Sib to borrow the glider again.

As soon as they had brought it back to him, Sib had thanked them a million times for bringing it back in one piece and for not doing anything foolish. He had heard of some idiots who had blown up an ammunitions factory that night and he was so glad they hadn’t been near it.

Pez and Seamus had just smiled sweetly and nodded, proclaiming that they were good little boys. Sib had given them a strange look, but had let it go. After all, a drug runner couldn’t start berating two people about what was idiotic and what wasn’t.

The night of the demonstration, Seamus was at the bar, yawning and drinking a beer. He had just given Charlie some more Nethyl and had come back from a quick rendezvous with a hooker in a dingy little room a block away from the pub.

He stretched. The only reason he had gone with the hooker was because he had thought it would wake him up a little more. But it hadn’t. He rubbed his eyes.

“Another beer, Shay?” Charlie asked, throwing some used glasses into dirty, soapy water. After swirling the water around, he fished the glasses back out and put them back onto a shelf. Seamus pretended not to notice.

“No thanks, Charlie. All I want is to wake up a little more.”

“Hard day?”

“Oh yeah. A group of hookers wanted some crystal for tonight, a business freak wanted some Nethyl, and then there was Curly’s crystal to make and a whole shit load of Flash too. I can’t keep up with it all.”

The bartender smiled. “You’ll be okay, Shay.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He muttered. He looked up. “You got a smoke on you, Charlie?”

He nodded and pulled one out from underneath the bar. He handed it to Seamus. He stuck it into his mouth and patted his pockets down until he found Pez’s lighter. He smiled. He had forgotten to give it back to him. Oops. Oh well. He shrugged and lit the cigarette.

Sticking the lighter back into his pocket, he took a long drag.

As he kept on sipping his beer and smoking, he found he could open his eyes a little more.

Suddenly, Pez walked through the bar door and sauntered over to the bar.

“Ready to go, Shay?”

He nodded, finishing his smoke and downing the rest of his beer.

He waved good bye to Charlie and walked out behind Pez, winking at a few hookers who were sitting around a table whom he knew.

As they walked out the door, he pulled the door closed behind him.

They walked down the silent, dark street, subconsciously stepping over the few drunks and gutter sleepers who lay in their way.

Pez was humming as they walked. He fished around his pocket and pulled out a black bandanna. He tossed it to Seamus.

Seamus wordlessly tied it around his hair. For the millionth time in his life, he wished that he had dark hair. But no, he had to be stuck with the shiniest, brightest hair on earth. Damn. But, he couldn’t complain. His dad had the same hair. There was no way he could have avoided it.

* * *

An hour later, they were standing in the middle of a pandemonium, screaming and yelling until their throats were sore. There were hundreds of people standing around them, all screaming and calling out.

There were all sorts of people too, all ages and all kinds of people. Drunks, parents, druggies, little street urchins, hookers, businessmen, they were all there.

Somebody accidently elbowed Seamus in the side. The person, a short haired mother with a small infant in her arms apologized to him. He smiled and said it was alright.

They were standing in front of a Nietzschean headquarter station. Unofficially, this was also well known for being the punishing chamber for street offences, such as stealing, hooking, and drug dealing.

People were madly running around, jumping around, screaming and calling, yelling in both common and Dyrillian, screaming insults, threats or chanting slogans calling for freedom and an end to tyranny.

Burning torches lit up the crowd, their angry, screaming faces dancing around in the dark shadows of the streets. Rocks were being thrown too, one of them shattering the bottom window of the building. A mad cheer went through the crowd which Seamus joined.

Several of the people were waving their arms in the air, holding their fingers in the signal, pumping their fists through the air, screaming and yelling curses, their voices angry and bitter. Some of them had even ripped off their shirts in the frenzy, proudly showing the mark on their right shoulder, screaming and taunting the Nietzschean guards to come and get them.

Another rock smashed into a window, the glass shattering. The crowd cheered again, crazed from the taste of revenge which electrified the night air.

As he stood there, his bandanna still covering his blond hair, shadows dancing across his face as the flame of a torch flickered beside him, Seamus had never felt freer in his life.

He started screaming along with the rest of the people, shouting himself hoarse between curses, insults and demands for freedom and an end to oppression.

Pez picked up a rock lying beside him on the ground and hurled it at the building. “This is for my parents, you fucking bastards.” He screamed.

A cheer went up from the crowd.

“Give us our freedom!” a woman beside Seamus screamed.

“Give us our damn planet back!” a man yelled, the crowd cheering wildly and another rock being hurled through the air.

Suddenly, a cry started from the other end of the crowd. It started softly, barely being heard among the screaming and cheering people and the crackling of the torches, but it got louder as more people joined it.

“Crystallia Roxia! Crystallia Roxia!” Seamus took up the cry, yelling as loudly as he could, angrily pumping the air with his fist. “Crystallia Roxia!”

The chant went like wild fire through the crowd until the whole mass was screaming it.

“Crystallia Roxia! Crystallia Roxia!”

Suddenly, the door of the headquarters burst open and a small group of armed Nietzscheans ran out, firing their guns into the crowd.

Slowly, the chanting turned to screaming as people were shot. Some others started running, desperately trying to fight their way through the crowd to get away from the guns.

The Nietzscheans didn’t say a word, but just continued firing, despite the anguished cries that came up from the people who were too late with trying to fight out of the crowd.

Seamus stopped chanting and grabbed Pez by the arm. They started moving through the crowd, shoving people aside as they went, pushing elbows out of their way, ignoring the terrified screams of the people and the sound of gun fire. At the last moment, Seamus turned back around and reached out through the dense smoke which engulfed the crowd so thickly he could hardly see the torches anymore.

“Come on, Shay!” Pez yelled.

“Hang on!” he shouted back, grabbing hold of the young, blond woman’s arm. He yanked her over to him and dragged her and her baby through the crowd with him.

As they fought their way out of the crowd, a man lying on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot to the chest grabbed Seamus’s leg as he went by.

“Keria meka!” he said hoarsely, his face twisted in pain. (Help me!)

Seamus looked at him for a split second. Then he pushed aside all the feelings which had suddenly welled up inside of him.

He abruptly shook the man’s hand off him and kept on walking, dragging the woman with him.

Finally, they reached the edge of the crowd. Panicked people ran by him, yelling to each other. Torches were thrown to the ground where they burned quietly, sending shadows flickering across the grey pavement.

Seamus let go of the woman’s arm.

She looked at him. “Feria.” She said. (Thank you.)

He smiled. “No problem. Now, get going. They’re gonna come through here any minute.”

He turned away from her and started running after Pez who was already at the end of the block.

He tore off the bandanna as he ran and stuffed it into his pocket.

The smell of smoke still burned his eyes and he crouched as he ran, ignoring the screams of pain and the gun fire which still echoed through the dark night behind him.

* * *

Seamus sat at the table, carefully shaking a vial full of crystal. He frowned when he looked at the clear, sparkling liquid. It needed some more Turin. He rummaged through the mess of different bottles and tubes on the table, lifting up scraps of paper and tossing aside a few used needles and pencils. God damn, where was it? Finally, he saw it. He opened the small bottle and squeezed a few drops into the crystal. He gently shook it and held it up to the light. Perfect. Curly was going to be one happy person tomorrow.

A moan from the mattress made him pause in his work. He put the crystal down and got up, walking over to the mattress and the sleeping form that lay on it.

He sat down and gently rolled Pez over. He moaned and slowly opened his eyes. His pale blue eyes stared up at Seamus.

“Hey, Shay. What’s up?”

Seamus smiled. “It’s been pretty quiet around here. I mean, me whipping up hundreds of batches of crap every day and you just lying here and moaning your head off. Yup, it’s been exciting.”

Pez smiled thinly.

“How’s your arm?”

Pez glanced down at the dirty bandage which was wrapped around his left shoulder. “It’s better. Ain’t hurt so much anymore.”

“Good.”

Seamus gently grabbed hold of his arm and tightened the bandage. It was really just a rag which he had found lying around, but it was better than nothing.

It had happened at the street demonstration they had been at a few days ago. It had been their fourth in just two weeks.

It had gone the same as always, the crowd whipped up to a frenzy, screaming and chanting, hurling rocks through the air. Just the usual. Until the Nietzschean guards had come stampeding into the crowd and started firing at the protesters. As always, Pez had grabbed Seamus and they had started running out of the crowd.

But just as they reached the edge of the hysterical mob, the person in front of Pez fell, a bullet lodged in his head. A Nietzschean was standing right in front of them, the barrel of his smoking gun pointed straight at them. Pez had sworn and Seamus had ducked down, pulling Pez down with him. But they had been a split second too late. The guard had fired, and the bullet had grazed Pez’s shoulder.

Pez had screamed and clutched his arm, but Seamus hadn’t stopped. He’d yanked his friend up from the ground and had started running down the street.

By the time they had reached their home, Pez was nearly unconscious, blood pouring down his arm, his entire body threatening to collapse.

Sweat poured down Seamus’s face as he threw his Pez’s arm over his shoulder and dragged his friend through the window, ignoring his moans of pain.

After he had dumped Pez onto the mattress, he had leapt back out of the window, running down the street, looking for somebody to help him. As he ran past a back alley, he saw a hooker, in the middle of arguing with a customer about how much she charged. He skidded to a stop. He knew her. Her name was Mindy, or something like that. He’d been with her countless of times. He also knew that she was the only one around here who knew beans about treating sick people.

The second he had interrupted her conversation and explained the situation, she had ditched her customer and taken off, running after him towards the basement room.

* * *

Seamus adjusted the bandage and walked back to the table. At least the wound had stopped bleeding. Mindy had said that he’d be fine unless it started to bleed again. In case that happened, she said to come and find her immediately.

He opened the drawer where he kept all the ready drugs. Man, he was hungry. He smiled. Both he and Pez had the money to buy food, but nobody had any to buy. His stomach growled. Damn Nietzscheans. They always kept more than half of the imported food which arrived daily from other planets.

For a while, the only sounds were Pez’s quiet breathing and the squeaking of a rat running underneath Seamus’s feet. Seamus hardly heard either of them. He was used to both.

“Shay?” Pez mumbled from where he lay.

“Hmm?” he mumbled, shifting through the numerous bottles and vials, looking for the laced Flash he had made some hooker he knew. He couldn’t understand how people could stand having Flash mixed with crystal, but she couldn’t get enough of it for some reason. Where the hell was it? Oh, there it was. He pulled it out and tossed it onto the table. He was going to see her tonight anyway. He might as well give it to her then.

Plus, then he wouldn’t have to pay her. It was a really dirty bargain, he knew, but it worked. He made them the drugs, and they’d sleep with him. It worked like a charm, especially considering what die hard addicts most of them were. Hey, it was cheaper than paying them every time.

“Thanks, Shay.”

He turned around and looked down at Pez. He smiled and turned back to the table. He softly closed the drawer.

“Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.” He said.

Pez laughed.

“Do me a favor, will you?”

“Sure.”

“Grab me some Nethyl, will ya?”

He pulled open the drawer again and rummaged through it until he pulled out a small vial of Nethyl. He’d made it from a bunch of left overs. He wasn’t going to sell it anyway. He tossed it over to Pez.

“Not too much. Just a few milligrams. I don’t want you going nuts with that shoulder.”

Pez smirked up at him, rolling up his sleeves and cleaning the needle on his shirt.

“Yes, mommy dear.”

Seamus rolled his eyes at him and stuck the laced Flash into his pocket. He went over to the window and leapt out.

“I’ll see you later, Pez.”

“Right.” Pez called back, rubbing his arm.

Seamus moved the piece of wood back over the broken window and quietly started walking down the street.

He had just rounded a corner and was about a block away from the bar, when a hand suddenly reached out from the shadows.

From years of living on the streets he leapt to the side from pure instinct, jumping into the gutters. He crouched down, his hand by his knife. His eyes darted around in the shadows. He immediately saw a man sitting there, crouching on the ground, a beer bottle in his hands.

He suddenly realized that his breath was coming out in ragged, short bursts and the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up straight.

“What the hell do you want?” he hissed, his eyes darting around, looking for others. The hand which he held by his knife was shaking. A thin layer of sweat formed on his forehead.

The man laughed. A shudder tore through Seamus. That was Rodney’s laugh.

“All I want, my lad, is to play a little. I’m having a mity boring evening here. Just thought you would care to entertain me.”

Seamus shuddered, his eyes widening in panic. He backed up a few steps.

“I’ll pay you mity fine for it too. What do you say, shall we say, oh, twenty thrones?”

He kept on backing up, tripping over the curb on the other side of the street. He scrambled back up, holding his knife in his hands. He was shaking.

“Stuff your twenty thrones down your throat you fucking, disgusting bastard.” He hissed, his voice shaking.

Then he turned and ran down the street, not looking back.

When he got to the bar, he leaned against the wall, breathing hard. He closed his eyes.

Oh God. Was it going to be like this for the rest of his life? Why couldn’t he just get over what Rodney had done to him? It happened to everyone. Why couldn’t he just forget about it? He opened his eyes, looking through the shadows around him.

He clutched the door post so hard his knuckles turned white.

Fuck you, Rodney. You’re the reason I’m like this. You’re the reason I’ll be like this for the rest of my life. Damn you, you bastard.

He bit his lip and forced himself to stop shaking.

Slowly, he opened the bar door and walked through it. Somebody brushed against him and he instantly recoiled, backing up into the wall.

Shaking slightly, he kept on walking, not being able to stop his eyes from roaming around, glaring at everyone suspiciously.

Fuck you, Rodney.


	5. Chapter 5

Slowly, the years went by.

The only thing that really changed was what happened at Crystallia.

They still stayed in the same home, where there was still the same furniture. They still went and begged Sib for favors. They still went and sat the bar every day, talking to Charlie. They still took orders and supplied drugs to the entire neighborhood, ranging from Curly and Mindy all the way to the head leader of Crystallia. They would still walk through the dark streets together, swearing at the drunks and running away from the night patrol. They still got drunk together when life got too depressing. They still would sit on the mattress during the famines, getting high off of whatever was within their reach in feeble attempts of forgetting about their hunger.

Harper smiled, remembering the first day that the leader had come up to him after a meeting, clearing his throat and looking very embarrassed. In a hushed voice, his eyes not quite meeting Harper’s, the man had asked if he could have a tiny bit of Flash by the next meeting. Just a tiny bit, not a huge amount.

Harper had smiled at him, and at the next meeting, had silently slipped him an enormous bottle filled with Flash. The man’s face had split into a huge grin and he had very quickly stuffed it into his pocket, whispering that he’ll pay him later.

Some of the hookers around the neighborhood came and went, as did some of their drug customers, but life remained the same.

Except for life at Crystallia.

During the countless revolts, street demonstrations, protests and acts of vandalism, many followers were killed or taken prisoner by the Nietzscheans.

Seamus and Pez were never caught, or even wounded much worse than that bullet grazing Pez’s arm and Seamus breaking his arm during a wild stampede after a demonstration when the Nietzscheans had let off a pepper spray bomb in the middle of the crowd. People had madly run in all directions, covering their burning eyes with their hands and trying to run away from the gas. Seamus had been trampled in the mayhem that had started, and if Pez hadn’t yanked him back up and shoved him out of the crowd, Seamus wouldn’t have been there to see any more protests.

The members of the cult didn’t only fade in and out because of them being captured or killed, but some people just stopped believing in it and quit, leaving room for more followers to indulge in it. Seamus couldn’t count the hundreds of wide eyed newcomers he saw nearly every day who came to the cult filled with the wild longing for revenge which he had had when he had joined. He still had it. At every act of resistance when the crowd was whipped up in a frenzy and Seamus was screaming and cursing along with them, chanting ‘Crystallia Roxia’ over and over again, he could feel the hatred burning deep within him. He could still hear their laughter, tearing through his body, fueling on his hatred.

The year that him and Pez turned 20, one of the leaders died. Old age, suicide, maybe a drug overdose. Nobody knew. But when it came time to pick a new leader, for the cult had to have three leaders, it had been something which Daxus had insisted upon for some unknown reason, all eyes turned to the most devout and passionate members of the cult.

Included in this group of people who had sacrificed everything from their families, their money, their pride, to some nearly their lives for the sake of the cult, were Seamus and Pez.

One night, at a meeting, all the members could vote for whoever they thought would make the best leader.

Seamus had dropped out of the race, not because he didn’t want to become the leader of the cult he had become one of the most passionate followers of, but because he wouldn’t be able to take on the leadership role, as well as keep up the strenuous and time consuming job of being the most notorious drug dealer in the city.

But Pez stayed in the running, and when the ballots were counted up, and Seamus was given the envelope to read out, he wasn’t at all surprised when he saw Pez’s name on the paper.

So Pez Madden became one of the three leaders of the biggest and most notorious cult in the entire world.

Pez took on all the responsibilities of being one of the leaders with relish. He was away a lot more than he used to be, attending meetings in other cities (which Seamus always flew him to in one of Sib’s gliders), discussing new strategies and plans with the other leaders, and giving speeches all over the place, spreading word about the cult and it’s beliefs as far as Seamus could fly him.

Seamus never minded, in fact, he was glad his friend had finally found the dream he had always been looking for. Being a leader and revolting against the Nietzscheans had been Pez’s dream for years. And now, he finally had it.

The cult stayed the same for years, never attempting any mass demonstrations or doing anything to endanger any other human lives, but kept at the low key, small protests and acts of vandalism that got their point across but didn’t harm anybody who wasn’t a Nietzschean.

All until one fateful night, five months after Pez had become the leader of Crystallia.

* * *

Pez came bursting through the window, hurling himself inside so fast that he tripped and nearly went sprawling across the floor on his face. He grabbed hold of the wall and pulled himself up, gasping for air, and a huge grin on his face.

Seamus looked up from where he was sitting on the mattress, calmly smoking a cigarette, trying to ignore the pain coming from his stomach. Another famine had raged through the city. There wasn’t a scrap of food anywhere. Damn Nietzscheans.

He cocked an eyebrow.

“In a hurry to get somewhere?” he asked, smiling.

Pez came over and collapsed onto the mattress.

“You better believe it, Shay.”

Seamus took a drag off the cigarette, the blue smoke swirling through the air. He stared at his grinning friend curiously. When Pez didn’t say anything, only stared back at him, Seamus got impatient.

“So, Pez, mind telling me what the hell’s the matter? You don’t come busting in here like this every day. So, either something happened, or you’re just real glad to see me.”

Pez laughed. “Oh, man, Shay. You have no idea.”

When he didn’t say anything else, Seamus got really impatient and kicked him lightly.

“Come on, man. Get talking. What the hell went on at that meeting?”

Pez laughed again. “You would not believe what happened Shay.” He stared at his friend, his eyes shining with excitement. “We’re on the verge of it, Shay. Right on the verge.”

Seamus frowned. “Verge of what? You high or something?”

“No, no, no. I’ve never been more sober and drug free in my life. But Shay—” his face broke into another enormous grin. “We’re gonna do it. We really are.”

“Do what? Would you fucking talk straight, Pez? I’m gonna strangle you in a second.”

Pez stared at him, his eyes shining. “I’m talking the big score, Shay. We’re gonna do the big score. You know the big rebellion that Daxus was always going on about? Well, I brought it by the two other leaders and they agreed to it. They loved the idea. Shay, this is the big score.”

Seamus nearly dropped his smoke. “What do you mean, big score? Isn’t this just another routine protest?”

Pez shook his head. “No, Shay. This is the big one. The one we’ve been waiting for years. The big score. The rebellion which will finally not only thrown those Nietzscheans off their damn high chairs, but it’ll grind them into dust afterwards.”

Seamus stared at him, not daring to believe what he was hearing. Sure, he’d heard Daxus mulling over the possibility of a huge rebellion, a worldwide revolt against the Nietzschean rule, but he never thought it would actually happened. He stared at Pez.

“You mean the actual one? The worldwide revolution?”

Pez nodded his head, his grin growing wider. “Yeah. The big one, Shay. With millions of people, across hundreds of countries with billions of guns, bombs and more rocks than anybody could ever throw in a lifetime, all revolting at the exact same time. The big score, Shay.”

Seamus ground out his cigarette on the cement floor, slowly shaking his head.

“You’re crazy, Pez.”

Pez laughed. “Crazy? I haven’t felt saner in my life.” He grabbed Seamus’s shoulders. “I have never felt more sober and saner in my entire fucking life, Shay. We’re gonna do it. We’re actually gonna do it. We’re gonna scare those bastards so damn badly that they’ll be running away from our planet, their frigging tails between their tails.”

Seamus stared at his friend.

Didn’t Pez understand that it wouldn’t work? Didn’t he see how pointless the whole thing was? Revolting against the Nietzscheans was like trying to fight fire by breathing on it. All it did was make it bigger and more dangerous. Throw the Nietzscheans off their planet. Right. Like that would ever happened.

But Pez would never see that. He was still flying high in the sky, infatuated by the idea of finally getting the revenge he’d been craving for.

Shit. Seamus couldn’t deal with this and starve to death at the same time.

He pushed himself off the mattress, nearly falling over as his head swam. Man, he either had to find some food or go and get so drunk that he wouldn’t feel the hunger anymore.

“Let me think about it, Pez.”

Pez smiled, his eyes still shining. “You do that, Shay. Although, I don’t see what you’d have to think about. It’s the big score, Shay. We’re really gonna do it.”

Seamus smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He walked past Pez and jumped out the window.

Win against the Nietzscheans. Right. Like that would ever happen.

* * *

He walked along the streets, darkness already having swallowed the sidewalks. The only light came from the few street lamps which lined the street, glowing softly.

He stumbled over a person lying in the street. He turned around and stared down at the person. The person wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing either. Seamus shrugged and turned around and kept on walking. During a famine, having corpses strewn all over the streets was nothing new.

He passed by a dark alley from where he could hear the sounds of a drunk laughing and a hooker purring.

He heard a group of Flash fried druggies sitting on the sidewalk, yelling and screaming beside him. He kept on walking in the gutter, his eyes scanning the darkness for anything which would get him food.

Finally, he found it. A drunk who was passed out in the gutter, snoring, had a small bowl of something lying half underneath his sleeping body.

Seamus ran over and quietly knelt down beside the man. He ignored the stench of alcohol and urine which engulfed him as soon as he turned the man over.

The man moaned and muttered something in his sleep. Seamus ignored him and swiftly pushed him over until he could grab the bowl. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed it. He made a face. Whatever it was, it had sat in that bowl for a long time.

But his stomach grumbled unbearable and he knew that this was probably the last thing he was gonna get in a long time. Ignoring the stench, he stuck his hand into the guck and quickly started shuffling it into his mouth.

After the first mouthful, his stomach revolted, making him gag, but Seamus closed his mouth and forced himself to swallow the slob.

The man moaned again. Terrified that he would wake up and attack him, Seamus reached over and pushed him further away from him. At first, his hand had gone down to where his knife was, but then he moved his hand back to the bowl. Killing him would be useless. As long as the idiot was drunk, he wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to catch him. He stuck his hand into the bowl and forced some more of it down his throat. He closed his eyes. God, was that disgusting.

He was so absorbed in eating the guck as fast as he could, that he didn’t pay attention to the noises behind him.

He didn’t notice the sound of the Flash friend punks screaming and yelling quieten down and fade suddenly, or the sound of the hookers purring being cut short abruptly.

He also didn’t notice the few people who were sitting in the gutter around him suddenly get up and melt into the darkness.

Only when he heard the sound of the heavy boots coming up behind him, did he realize who it was.

He swore and dropped the bowl. He was about to dive into the darkness, when a strong hand clamped down on his shoulder.

He started shaking. Oh God.

The boots stopped and he could see the Nietzscheans slowly surrounding him, their boots crunching on some stones lying on the ground. One of them absentmindedly kicked aside the sleeping drunk.

“So, what do we have here?” The hand grabbed hold of his hair and yanked him up. Seamus quickly bit his lip and swallowed the yelp of pain that threatened to burst from his mouth. The Nietzschean turned him around and glared down at him. Seamus swiftly glanced around himself, looking for a way to escape, but he was surrounded. Oh, shit.

“A thief, perhaps?” The guard said, sounding bored. He sighed. The sound was the most terrifying sound Seamus had ever heard. “What a pity. I hate thieves, you see. Out of all of you disgusting, low life kludges, I hate thieves the most. What a pity. Oh, well. There’ll be one less thief on the streets tonight, if I can help it. What do you say?” he asked, crossing his arms and glaring down at him.

Seamus licked his dry lips and forced himself to stop trembling. But he knew that trying to hide his fear was useless. The Nietzscheans had better eyes than he did. They’d be able to see the fear in his eyes anyway. But he still forced his voice to stop shaking when he bitterly retorted.

“I say, fuck off.” He spat.

The guard raised an eyebrow. “So, a wise ass as well as a thief. I’m really starting to not like you.”

“Oh, too bad. But don’t worry. The feeling’s mutual.” Seamus hissed up at him.

One of the guards chuckled. The hair on the back of Seamus’s neck rose. That laughter. It was that damn laughter again!

The guard suddenly reached for his throat. He tried to turn and twist away, but he was too late. The guard grabbed him by the throat and threw him at another guard. The guard easily caught him and held him up, clamping his arms down by his sides, his feet dangling above the ground.

Now, the terror really settled in. He kicked his legs, trying to get the guard to drop him. Oh, God. He had to get out of here. Oh, God.

But it was useless. The squirming, the kicking. It only made the Nietzscheans laugh harder. That turned some of his terror into hatred, making him kick harder and swear at them. But that only fueled on their anger. They were even pointing at him.

Finally, when Seamus was worn out, he resigned himself to whatever they would do to him. Whatever it was, a beating, humiliation, rape, a whipping, he had had it all done to him before. He slowly stopped struggling. Finally, the guards stopped laughing.

The one who had spoken to Seamus stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. “Oh, God. You are funny, boy.” He cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles. Seamus’s entire body started shaking. “But now, it’s time for the real fun.” The guard whispered before rolling his hand up in a fist and punching Seamus so hard in the stomach that he was left dangling from the guards arms, gasping and wheezing for air.

Before he could even get his breath back, another punch came. He bit down on his lips, determined not to scream.

He managed to keep his mouth shut as they kicked and punched him all over, until one of them struck him across the face with a back hand blow. Normally, it wouldn’t have hurt that badly, but Nietzscheans had those damn bone blades. The three jagged bones sliced through his skin, tearing the muscle and nerves underneath.

Seamus screamed.

* * *

When he woke up, he found himself lying on the mattress at home, a bunch of concerned faces floating in and out of his vision. Groggily, he blinked, trying to clear his head.

He tried to turn his head, but his neck muscles screamed and he gently moved his head back the way it was. He groaned. Man, he felt like crap.

“Shay? You awake?” He heard Pez ask.

He opened his mouth. “Sorta.” Okay, great. He could still talk.

He looked up, and slowly, the many faces all melted into one. Pez was sitting on the mattress beside him. A blood soaked rag was in his hand and a bucket of filthy water was lying on the ground beside him.

“How long have I been asleep for?” he asked.

Pez smiled. “Two days.”

He nodded, slowly. “How do I look?” he asked, afraid of what the answer would be.

Pez’s smile changed into a grimace. “Well, how do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Well, that just about wraps up your looks too.”

Seamus sighed. “Great.” He slowly turned his head and looked at Pez. “Who found me?”

“I did.” Pez said, rinsing the rag out before gently wiping his cheek. Seamus looked at the rag when he took it away. It was covered in blood. Great.

“You never came back that night, so around midnight or so, I went out to look for you. I nearly fell over you, lying there in the gutter, looking deader than the corpse I’d just stumbled over. I wouldn’t have even looked down if it hadn’t been for that drunk who was lying a few feet away from you. He grabbed my arm and fuzzily pointed at you and asked if that wasn’t my friend. So I goes over there and turn you over, and sure enough, it was you. You looked like hell, covered in blood, your face all swelled up and covered in bruises, but it was still you. So I pick you up and drag you home.”

Seamus smiled, ignoring the throb of pain from his cheek. “Thanks, Pez.”

He waved it off. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”

Seamus grinned and closed his eyes. Feeling safer than he had in days, he drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

He groaned and opened his eyes. He felt a little better. A little more alive. But he must still look like hell. He grinned. Thank God he lived in the only place in the universe where it didn’t matter what you looked like, just how much money you had.

He gingerly pushed himself up and leaned against the wall. He looked around the filthy cement floor and saw a bottle of beer sitting beside him. He reached over, ignoring the throbs of his arm, and grabbed it. He sniffed it. Didn’t smell too fresh. Oh well. He shrugged and took a sip.

Oh, yeah. Good alcohol. Now he was ready to live life.

He looked around for Pez and found him sitting at the table, busily scribbling on a piece of paper.

“What’re you doing?” he called over, taking another sip.

Pez glanced up and grinned. “Oh, somebody decided to finally wake up, huh? What am I doing? Just scribbling down some of the junk we’ll need for our big score. You know, how many guns and sticks of dynamite and all that other crap.”

Seamus didn’t answer him. He stared at Pez, slowly remembering what the big score was. Oh yeah, the revolution.

The big one.

He took another sip of his beer. For the first time, he was actually looking forward to it. He couldn’t wait to blow all those bastards off the face of this planet and send the rest of them running back to their own home world.

He smiled bitterly. Oh, yeah. He couldn’t wait.

He slowly took another sip. Finally, after all the years of torment, pain, humiliation and degradation they’ve forced him through, it would be payback time.

He remembered getting whipped when he was seven. How loudly he had screamed, how much he had begged them to stop. But they had just laughed.

His eyes glittered with hatred. That damn laughter. The guard at the jail had laughed like that too after beating him and throwing him against that wall, and afterwards, whipping him until he was sliding around in his own blood. How he had laughed.

He gripped the beer bottle so hard, his knuckles went white.

Then, they humiliated him so badly when he was fourteen. It had been the damn night patrol again. Stripping off all his clothes and beating him until he was crying tears of, not only pain, but of bitter humiliation. Then, his tears had turned to tears of anger as the Nietzscheans had all started laughing. That damn laughter.

And now, this. Grabbing him in the middle of the night and beating him senseless. Not only that, but they had laughed at him.

He took another sip, his eyes glaring at the wall in front of him.

And they had done it for no other reason other than the fact that they could. It didn’t bring them any money, it didn’t give them any respect, it didn’t make people fear them anymore. No, they only did it because they could.

But not anymore.

He glanced down at his arm and saw the three black stars defiantly shining up at him. He smiled grimly. He’d get his revenge. Oh, yeah. He’d get it. He’d go to that damn revolution and kill as many of the bastards as he could.

He glanced over at Pez who was still busily counting and scribbling, his eyebrows creased in concentration.

Slowly, Seamus floated back to reality.

It would never work. Never.

Even though the Nietzscheans were severely outnumbered, they still had all the advantages they didn’t have. They had the excess amount of ammunition and weaponry. They also had the strength and the power, neither of which they had.

He sighed. It would never work.

It was a suicide plan. Sure, they could organize it. They could get all the people fired up and ready to go. They could find some way to get over to where ever it would be. They might even get some of the guns and dynamite they’d need. Hell, the rocks weren’t going to be a problem. But the actual fighting, that part was hopeless. It would be like trying to fight fire by breathing on it. It was pointless. All of their ammunition would be wasted in seconds, it they would have any at all, and then the Nietzscheans would descend upon the mob with guns, knives, pepper spray bombs, dynamite, burning torches and anything else which would kill as many as possible and scare the others enough to make them run. It would be over in seconds. Seamus chuckled bitterly. The bastards wouldn’t even have to come outside to fight them. All they had to do was dispatch a glider with a bomb in it, fly over them and then drop it. There’d be more dead bodies than they could ever count. And the ones who could still walk somehow would be descended upon by the guards and hauled in for torture and punishment.

Seamus took another sip and glanced down at the stars again.

Fuck, why was he thinking like this? So damn negatively. The frigging cult was called Crystallia for a reason. What was it that Daxus had said? Oh, yeah. If you have nothing left, you still had hope. Oh, he had lots of that alright.

He sighed and drew his hand through is hair wearily.

But just not hope for this. Not for the big score.

He finished the beer and threw it to the side. It hit the wall with a dull thud and fell onto the floor, rolling around aimlessly.

He stared at the bottle. Yeah. He had hope alright. He knew, deep down, that he’d get his revenge one day.

But not like this. Not by throwing himself into an open fire.

No. He’d get his revenge. But not like this, and not now.

He glanced up at Pez again. “Pez?”

“Hmm?” he answered, not looking up from where he was busily writing.

Seamus stared at his best friend. Pez would never understand. He was too absorbed in his dream. Too full of hope. He’d never understand. Or rather, he wouldn’t want to understand.

No, it would be useless trying to get Pez to give this up.

This was Pez’s revenge. Right now. This was his revenge.

Pez probably knew it wouldn’t work, but he was too absorbed in his revenge, plotting how he was going to kill the bastards who had killed his parents and nearly killed him, that he didn’t want to listen to reason. This was his revenge.

Seamus had no right to ruin that.

“What?” Pez asked, looking up at him and staring at him with those pale eyes. He frowned and looked him over. It wasn’t like his best friend to stare so vaguely into space, lost in his thoughts.

Seamus looked at him.

“Chuck me those spare thrones I have in that top drawer, will you? I’m gonna go see if I can get some action.”

Pez laughed and shook his head. He tossed him three thrones.

“You’re crazy, Shay. You know that? Crazy.”

Seamus smiled weakly and pushed himself up. He walked over to the window, calling bye over his shoulder.

He was crazy alright. But not crazy enough to believe in something that wouldn’t work. The stars shone in the faded light of the streetlamps. He smiled. He still had hope. He was still going to get his revenge.

He walked down the dark street, keeping away from the sidewalk and stepping over the people lying in the gutter.

But just not now.

* * *

Seamus kept his thoughts to himself for the next two months, during which the plans for the revolution escaladed. Pez attended countless meetings and ended up sitting at that table drawing and calculating more than Seamus usually did.

Seamus had to even resort to moving all his drug supplies and tools onto the mattress, because he couldn’t find the room on the table to work.

But after two more months of frenzied planning, Seamus finally broke down and told Pez what he thought.

Pez hadn’t taken it well.

“What do you mean, it won’t fucking work?” he spat, staring at his friend.

Seamus swallowed. Why the hell did he get into this? “Pez, just think about it logically for a moment. They’ll always be stronger, faster and better than us. No matter what we do, we won’t be able to beat them. And not only will we lose, but we’ll be slaughtered too. It’s a suicide plan, Pez.”

Pez stared at him, slowly some of that hope fading from his eyes. Understanding was starting to dawn. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I know that Shay. Trust me I know.” He whispered, then laughed. “Fuck, do you think that I don’t know that? That the odds are about one to a hundred? That none of us will come back alive? That it probably won’t even make them tremble, only make them laugh? God damn, Shay. Of course I know that. But don’t you see? I don’t care if it works. I don’t care if it will even happen, but I want to be the one to do it if it does. I want my revenge, Shay. I’ve wanted it for years, and now, here is the golden opportunity to have it. I don’t care about the results. I just care that I’m gonna get my revenge. Whether I’ll die or not, I don’t care, because I’ll die spitting in their faces. And that’ll be my revenge, Shay. I want nothing else. Just that. To die while fighting them.”


	6. Chapter 6

Talks of the revolution kept on going at a frantic pace. Street demonstrations and random acts of vandalism were increasing, as a sort of warning to their oppressors that something was going to happen. At the meetings, nothing else was talked about except for the revolution.

It had finally been agreed to attempt the revolution in two different areas, areas that were quite far apart so that the Nietzscheans would have to divide their forces evenly. It would increase their chances of success.

Seamus found himself in the midst of the revolutionary preparations as well. Being the best friend of the chief organizer of the thing meant that he couldn’t keep his nose out of it, even if he tried.

He borrowed a glider from Sib again and flew Pez around with that and attended countless meetings with him, where he handed out flyers talking about the revolution while Pez whipped the crowd into a frenzy with his passionate, revenge thirsty speeches.

When the huge crates of guns, rifles, knives, dynamite, miniature bombs and other weaponry started arriving, Seamus agreed to not only pick up and deliver quite a few of them in the dead of the night, but to also help store some in their own home. He was amongst the few black dressed people who crept along the dark streets in the middle of the night, lunging huge crates behind him, the bandanna covering his blond hair. He’d drag the crate over to the window, softly move the wood covering the window aside and then gently lower the crate down to whoever was standing below.

Pretty soon, their little home was stacked so full of boxes that Pez and him had to dig their way out of the mess when they wanted to get from the table to the mattress, or from the mattress to the window.

* * *

Seamus sat on the sidewalk, underneath the faint glow of the streetlamps, a group of druggies lurching by him, laughing. He held an empty bottle in his hand. He shook it and, finding it empty, he hurled it across the street. He listened as it shattered into little pieces.

He found it strangely satisfying.

He looked around himself. He was hungry as hell, but he didn’t feel like going all the way back to the bar to beg Charlie for food since he couldn’t pay for it. He’d used up his last few thrones on the hooker he’d just left ten minutes ago. Damn blond wanted to overcharge him. He had been too drunk to care and he’d just given her the money.

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

He didn’t want to go home. Home where Pez was sitting, mulling over tiny details. Home where crates full of illegal weapons lay strewn about. Home where he felt like a hypocrite.

A drunk came lurching past him and stopped, asking him for a few thrones to spare. Seamus had shook his head, but when the drunk came closer to him, he’d pulled out his knife and told the guy to fuck off or he’d slit his throat. The drunk obviously knew he meant it, and lurched back into the darkness, walking over to the sleeping form of a woman lying in the gutter.

Seamus watched from where he was sitting as the man looked her over and then started tearing at her clothes, looking for money or food.

He turned away, ignoring it.

He continued ignoring it when he heard the drunk dragging the woman into nearby alley and heard him tying her mouth shut with a bandanna.

Seamus stretched and yawned. He was too hardened from life on the streets to care. He smiled bitterly. Anybody else who would have seen a man dragging another person into an alley to rape her would have said something, but not him.

Damn. Life had really turned him into a cold bastard.

He pushed that thought aside.

Damn, he wanted another beer.

But he couldn’t go home. No. He couldn’t do that.

He dropped his head onto his arms. What the hell was he gonna do?

The revolution was only months away. He wasn’t going to be a part of it. He knew that. He’d made up his mind long ago about that. But how was he gonna get out of it?

He laughed. He couldn’t even get out of delivering some fucking crates from one end of the city to another. How was he gonna get out of this?

He knew that Pez didn’t expect him to be there. It wasn’t Pez that he was worried about. It was everybody else he was worried about. He’d gone around for months, helping Pez spread word about the for sure success of the revolution. He had made hundreds of people believe they actually had a chance. Hundreds of people whom he had convinced to throw their lives out of the window.

He sighed. And out of everybody, he was going to run away.

He had to. He couldn’t stay here. Not only because he couldn’t stay here while everybody went off to sacrifice themselves for something he had basically set them up for, but because he didn’t want to see the results. He didn’t want to be the one to sift through piles of dead bodies, looking for people he knew.

No way.

He had to get out of here. But how?

Damn, now he really needed another beer.

As a drunk couple stumbled past him, he called over to them and asked them if they had a beer to spare. They stared at him at first, and then asked him how he would pay for it. By the grins on their faces, he knew what they would prefer, but the involuntary shudder that went down his back prevented that from happening.

He fished around in his pockets and found his last two thrones there. He tossed them over. As the man bent down to pick them up, the woman came over and handed him her opened beer bottle. Seamus took it and started drinking it, as the couple continued lurching down the street, laughing.

He had some money left. Hidden in the drawer. That was where Pez and him had stored some of their money. He could use that. Pay his way onto one of those cargo ships that left the docking stations daily, filled with supplies bound for the Nietzschean home world or some other god forsaken planet in the middle of nowhere..

He thoughtfully took another sip, then pushed himself up and slowly started walking home.

It was time for him to go.

* * *

Pez had stared at him at first, a smile on his face, not completely allowing what Seamus had just said to sink in.

“You’re leaving?” he asked in disbelief.

Seamus looked at the ground, avoiding his best friend’s eyes. “Yeah.”

Pez stared at him. “Because of the revolution?”

“Among other things.”

Pez cleared his throat, looking around their little home. “You got money?”

“I was thinking I could take half of what we have in that drawer.”

Pez nodded. He walked over to the drawer and yanked it open. He quickly counted out a few thrones and then handed them to him. After only a quick glance, Seamus knew that this was way more than half the amount, but he didn’t say anything. He stuck the money into his pocket. Only then did he look at his friend.

“Hey, Pez?”

“Hmm?”

“Good luck with the big score. I hope things go well.”

Pez laughed. It sounded hollow. “Crystallia Roxia, my friend. Crystallia Roxia.”

Seamus smiled.

“Hey, Shay?”

Seamus looked up at him. It was the first time he realized it, but Pez was exactly the same height as him. He found it strangely comforting.

“Pernacha nita bernada terit zuka.” (Take care of yourself, where ever you might be)

Seamus smiled. “Kura Breana.” (You too.)

Pez grinned at him, then swallowed. Hard.

They stood there, staring at each other, remembering all the things that had happened since that day, six years ago when Pez had yanked Seamus behind that board to hide from the night patrol. So long ago. So long, long ago.

Seamus stared around their home. Nothing had changed in it. He looked at the mattress, remembering the many times they had huddled on it, shivering from the cold or when they had sat by each other’s side when one of them had gotten hurt or sick. He looked at the table, full of all of his tools and supplies and Pez’s drawings. He remembered their old running days and the months before that when they had lived off of what they could scrape together out of the gutter. Now, they both had solid jobs, even if both of them were very illegal.

He looked back at Pez, smiling. So many things had happened to them. So many things. And if he could go back and live those last six years all over again, he wouldn’t do anything differently.

Slowly, he held up his right hand in the old signal. Pez smiled and held up his hand too. Wordlessly, their fingertips touched, eternally bonding them together in that unbreakable chain of friendship.

“Crystallia Roxia.” Pez whispered.

Seamus smiled at him. “Crystallia Roxia.”

Slowly, they lowered their hands. Then, Seamus turned and lightly leaped out of the window. He quickly moved the covering back in place, then stood up.

Without looking back, he walked down the street.

* * *

Seamus Harper, age twenty, walked down the dark streets underneath the faint glow of the streetlamps, completely alone, towards whatever his life held for him next.

He was still, after all these years, walking in the gutter.

* * *

Days later, he found himself sitting in a cramped, reeking wooden crate aboard a cargo ship.

At first, he had gone straight to the docking station and tried to buy his way onto one of the ships bound for—anywhere. He hadn’t cared. But of course, nobody had wanted to stuff a street rat like him onto a cargo ship full of supplies and food which were meant for anyone but him. So in the dead of the night, he had crept aboard one of the ships leaving in a few hours.

He had crawled along the cargo bay inside the ship, dodging around enormous crates and keeping his eyes darting around, looking for any people who might see him.

He had edged his way slowly and carefully along the floor, crouching so low he was nearly slithering along the ground, until he found a crate which was miraculously empty.

He quietly wrenched it open and slid into it. Then, he pulled the lid back over him and settled down.

Finding the crate and getting into it hadn’t been the problem. He had been sneaking around undetected underneath Nietzschean noses his whole life, and from his running days, he could spot an empty crate from a mile away.

However, staying in the crate, leaning and sitting on the hard wood started having its effect on him soon.

He fell asleep almost as soon as he closed the crate, and when he woke up again, his body aching from the cramped position he was sitting in, the ship was already moving.

He smiled grimly, trying to feel his toes. At least he was getting away from earth. Shit. Nobody could have paid him to believe that he would ever leave the hell hole he was born on.

But now he was.

Shit. He still could hardly believe it. He was actually leaving earth. Forever.

Yeah. Forever. He was never coming back. No matter what happened, he’d never come back. Never.

He closed his eyes, ignoring his dry throat. He was never going to come back.

When he opened his eyes again, his throat and lips were so dry and aching for water that he nearly choked. He yawned and made a face when his throat ached in protest. He had to find some water somewhere. But where? He glanced around the tiny crate while trying to shift his legs around into a more comfortable position. He couldn’t even move them.

Where the hell was he going to get some water from?

* * *

Days later, he heard the engines of the ship being cut. He could barely move.

In the past few days, he had only climbed out of the crate when he had to go to the bathroom or when his need for water grew so strong that he had to go clambering over dozens of crates, trying to peek inside of them for water. He had finally found a bunch of crates with water, but opening them had been impossible. So he had ripped a board off of his crate and started poking the water bags in the crates until he had burst them enough for a trickle of water to come out.

He never stayed out of his crate for long. He was too scared of being discovered by somebody. So after licking up some drops of water, and going to the bathroom, he climbed back into his crate and fell asleep for a few more hours.

He didn’t eat. He didn’t need to. From years of starving, his body was used to going for days without getting any food. His stomach even stopped complaining after the second day.

* * *

As soon as the engines cut, he knew he had to move. He couldn’t wait for the people to come and start unloading the crates. He’d be seen for sure.

He quietly pushed the lid of his crate up, and grabbed the sides and slowly pulled himself out. His legs had gotten so weak from being cramped in such a small space for so long that he couldn’t move them. When he had pushed himself out of the crate, he turned around and fell onto the floor with a thump. He bit his lip to keep from yelping. Great, Harper. Great.

He slowly tried to stand up, but his legs just lay there. So he bit his lip, gritted his teeth and slowly slithered across the floor, praying that nobody saw him.

The cargo bay doors had already been opened, but nobody had come to unload the cargo yet.

Seamus was sweating and gasping for breath as he forced himself to go faster. Finally he reached the edge of the cargo bay and hauled himself over the edge. He landed face first in the dirt.

He pulled himself upright by holding onto a chain which dangled above him and then slowly forced his legs to walk. His eyes darted all around him and sweat poured down his face. Please, please, please, let nobody see me, he prayed.

When he tried to take a step, his legs gave out on him and he fell down. Gritting his teeth again, he started slithering along the ground, gasping for breath.

Finally, he reached the end of the docking station. Miraculously, nobody had seen him. Gasping for breath and sweat pouring down his face, he leaned against a wall and slowly started rubbing his legs to get the feeling back in them.

Only when he could walk again did he venture out of the station and look around his new home.

He was on Galatia.

* * *

As he found out soon enough, Galatia was not very different from Earth. The same poverty. The same broken, wasted homes. The same hookers, druggies, drunks and street rats, like him. And bartenders.

Except, Galatia didn’t have any Nietzscheans.

As it turned out, Galatia had once been inhabited by a race which had gone extinct years ago, leaving the planet deserted. Suddenly, all the loners and outcasts of the universe started coming to it, finding the one place in the universe where nobody would know them or ask any questions. That’s why the planet was a cultural bucket, covered in every species and race Seamus had ever seen or heard of. Some, he’d never even heard of.

But their lifestyle wasn’t a bit different from his old lifestyle on earth.

The drunks still lurched around the streets, hookers still hung out at the bars and in the back alleys, winking at anyone and anything that walked by, druggies still ran around the streets, frying themselves on anything they could find and doing anything, even killing, if they couldn’t find any.

As he walked along in the gutter, dodging the occasional Flash fried idiots who walked by, leering at him, or the drunks who lay passed out in the dirt by his feet, he bit his lip and thought about where the hell he was going to go.

After a moment, he realized he didn’t have anywhere to go.

There wasn’t any home with Pez in it. No mattress to run to, no window to hop through. No Charlie to bum free drinks from. No Sib to bum favors from. No drug dealing to get him money and to find him friends anywhere he turned.

Nope. He was completely alone. He swore.

Just then, a hand reached up from the gutter and nearly grabbed his shirt. Out of pure instinct, he leapt out of the way, crouched down and faced the person, his hand on his knife, his breathing coming out in quick gasps.

But when he saw the stretching, sleeping drunk lying in front of him, he relaxed and got up. He kept on walking.

He finally found himself at the door of a bar. He stared at the door, but when he felt the few thrones he still had in his pocket, he shrugged and went in.

He dodged around the tables filled with laughing, drunk people, spraying beer everywhere and swearing. He went up to the bar and sat down and ordered a beer.

As he sat there and sipped his beer, he looked around the bar, not used to not recognizing a single face in the crowd of people.

He swore again and downed his beer. He was about to order another one, when he noticed a brunette hooker winking at him from a stool further down the bar.

He gave her a grin.

Immediately, she hopped off her stool and slowly walked over to him, smiling the whole time.

Without a word, she sat down next to him and stared at him.

He stared back, a smile still on his lips, his empty glass in front of him.

He gave her another grin, but then held up his hands apologetically. “Sorry, sweetie. I really would. You don’t know how badly I need this, but I’m flat broke. Ain’t got a throne to my name that I can spare.”

She slowly smiled, her eyes running up and down his body.

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow, still smiling at him.

“Well, that’s okay. Cause you see, I’m not broke.”

She smiled.

Seamus had a very hard time swallowing for a moment.

But then, he thought, what the hell? Why not? He’d be getting laid and paid for it too. Hell, after all these years of paying them, why couldn’t he be paid once? His conscience had hardened so much over all these years that he didn’t even know it existed anymore. He slowly smiled. Besides, he could afford to eat tomorrow then.

He grinned at the hooker. “So the two of us switch places then, huh? I’m the hooker and you’re the customer.”

She nodded and stood up. “Sounds good to me. Your place or mine?”

“I ain’t got a place.”

“Alright then, my place.”

She took his hand and led him out of the bar and down the dark streets.

As they walked, Seamus nodded that the glow of the faded street lamps were the same here as they had been on earth.

Finally they reached a dingy little apartment, the likes of which Seamus had seen too many of in his life. He wordlessly followed the girl inside, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.

* * *

Well, at least he had found himself a job, he reasoned with himself three weeks later.

These last three weeks he had been busy as hell. The brunette had realized quite quickly that he was a newcomer to the area, and did him the favor of spreading word of his services.

After that first night, women flocked to him at the bar nearly every night.

If he had had any feelings of shame whatsoever that first time, they evaporated very quickly.

It became so routine for him, them coming up to him and asking him if he was free. He’d nod and they’d walk out of the bar to their place or just a back alley somewhere. It really didn’t matter. Afterwards, they’d always pay him. Sometimes a tip too.

After a while, when he realized how much money he was making, he started really not caring anymore. He didn’t give a damn whether there was one woman or if there were three, whether the person was human or an alien.

After a couple of months, he didn’t even care how old they were.

But the one thing he wouldn’t do, was other men.

A lot of them had asked, but he had always politely declined. He’d tried it once, but the memories of Rodney had come flooding back so harshly that he had freaked out, scaring the wits out of his customer.

He had apologized, but that had been the last time that he had taken on other men.

But after a couple of months, Seamus could safely say that he had yet again found himself a good job. An illegal one, but it was still a job. He had lots of customers, and in a while, where ever he went, people recognized him and talked to him.

Galatia slowly felt like home.

* * *

Harper smiled grimly as he sat on the floor of Andromeda’s corridors. And now, two years after living on Galatia and one year after flying around with Beka, he was living on the Andromeda Ascendant, a Commonwealth starship.

He laughed out loud. Who would have thought he would ever see, never mind live on such a dream ship? There was food, an actual bed, he even had his own quarters. And Engineering! A whole room where he could do anything he wanted.

And for the first time in his life, he actually had a legal job.

He started laughing. Finally, after all these years, he had a legal job. He kept on laughing, gasping for breath, tears coming to his eyes as his laughter echoed off the corridor walls.

A legal job. Finally. It had taken 23 years of living in hell, but he finally had a legal job. He kept on laughing, holding his stomach.

“What the hell? Harper, are you alright?” Beka asked, walking up to him and staring down at him. Dylan stood beside her, raising an eyebrow as they stared down at the hysterical engineer sitting sprawled on the corridor floor.

“Boss…I finally got a—a—a legal—after all these—years.—Oh God! After all these years—finally a legal—.” He couldn’t get the sentence out before collapsing in another laughing fit.

Beka put her hands on her hips and stared down, wryly shaking her head.

“I always knew you were nuts, but you never proved it so well.” She said.

Dylan sighed, a smile on his lips. “Mr. Harper, when you get a hold of yourself, if you ever do, please go and see about those controls in Command. They’re stuck and they won’t move. Mr. Harper? Can you hear me? Mr. Harper!”

Not being able to choke out even a one word answer, Harper nodded, still laughing so loud that the hologram Rommie appeared, raising an eyebrow and frowning down at the engineer in disbelief.

“Finally.” He choked out, pounding the floor with his hand.

Beka sighed and threw her hands up in exasperation. “Dylan, I say we just keep on walking and pretend we never saw him.”

“Good idea.” Dylan agreed, tearing his eyes off the young man who was still in hysterics.

Shaking their heads and smiles on their faces, the captain and his first officer continued down the corridor while the engineer lay on the floor, laughing until tears came down his face.

* * *

Three weeks later, Harper was sitting in the mess deck, eating a sandwich while Trance made herself some soup. Beka lay sprawled in one of the chairs, reading a flexi on the newest FTA news while Rev quietly sat on the chair across from her, talking to Trance about an interesting plant he had seen recently.

“Was it purple or blue?” Trance asked, stirring the soup. Harper rolled his eyes, biting into his sandwich. There must be nothing more boring to talk about in the entire universe than plants. They were the tops.

“I think a dark blue. With yellow tracings running through the petals, like rivers.”

“Oh, those are Xanderphylians. The colors of those tracings change with temperature, you know. They turn yellow when it’s hot and purple when it’s cold.”

“Fascinating.”

Harper rolled his eyes. He had another word for it, but he didn’t think he could say it out loud. Not with Trance sitting in front of him and Beka within punching distance.

Suddenly, Dylan’s voice came on over the intercom.

“Emergency meeting in my quarters in five minutes. Important news that we just received. Everyone should be there. I mean everyone, including you, Mr. Harper.”

Harper stuffed the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and stuck his tongue out at the intercom. Beka whapped him over the head, not taking her eyes off the flexi.

“Ouch.” He whined, rubbing his head.

She rolled her eyes. “Be quiet, whiner.”

Trance laughed. Even Rev chuckled. Harper glared at him. Rev snarled. The hairs on the back of Harper’s neck immediately stood up and he nearly leapt to the side. Rev chuckled again and apologized as Harper glared at him.

“That wasn’t funny.”

Trance smiled. “I think that Rev Bem would have a difference of opinion on that one, Harper.”

Harper pushed himself off his chair and walked out of the room. “I’m gonna go somewhere where I feel wanted.”

“In that case, you better take the Maru and go looking, Harper. But make it quick. It’ll be late soon.” Beka called over to him.

Rev and Trance laughed again.

Harper rolled his eyes and slowly made his way towards Dylan’s quarters. Usually he was always the late one at the meetings. This time, he’d be on time.

* * *

Five minutes later, the entire crew was assembled in Dylan’s quarters, lounging around in the chairs or leaning against the wall. They had all come in laughing and talking, but as soon as they saw Dylan’s dead serious face, their laughter tapered off.

Dylan stood behind his desk, staring at a flexi he had in front of him. He quickly glanced up when his crew filtered into his room. Beka could see in his eyes that it was bad news. She bit her lip. Well, whatever it was, they’d have to deal with it sooner or later.

After they had all sat down and were staring at Dylan in silence, they all realized that something bad was in the air. Tyr and Beka were staring hard at their captain, Rev was staring at the floor and Trance and Harper were fidgeting in their seats.

Dylan looked up. In his eyes, there was an immense sadness which Harper had rarely seen in his captains eyes. He frowned. Something was definitely wrong.

“Dylan? What is it?” Beka asked, frowning too.

Dylan stared at her and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was heavy and sad.

“About a week ago, an enormous revolution occurred on earth. Billions of people revolted against the tyrannical rule of the Drago Katzov pride who had been occupying this planet for decades, keeping its people in severe poverty and desperation as a result of their oppression.” He stopped and briefly glanced around the room, not meeting any of their eyes.

“The Nietzscheans brutally crushed the revolution, and just two short days after it started, it was all over. In total, they killed about 50 million people.” He whispered. Then, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it, he frowned and said it again, his voice so quiet that they barely heard him.

“50 million people.”

* * *

Harper couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t even see clearly. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. All he was aware of was his hands tightly clutching the arm rests of his chair.

He let out one ragged breath.

He felt as if someone had poured cold water down his back. Waves of heat and cold swept over him, making him sweat and shake violently all at once.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the whole room started violently spinning around him.

Oh, my God. It had happened.

After all these years. After all this time.

The big score.

Oh, God. It had really happened.

Pez’s huge revolution.

He forced himself to take one jerky breath, the air catching in his throat.

Oh, God.

He knew this day would come. Somewhere, deep within himself, he knew it would come. But he had always prayed that he wouldn’t know about it when it did come.

Damn, it. Why didn’t he stay? Why didn’t he try harder to stop it?

50 million people. 50 million fucking people.

And he had run away from them. Run away from the whole thing.

He slowly drew one of his white, shaking hands across his sweat streaked forehead.

It had really happened. The big score.

Oh, God. Why? Why? Why?

Why now? Why?

Oh, God.

What was it that Pez had said? Oh, yeah.

“We’re gonna scare those bastards so damn badly that they’ll be running away from our planet, their frigging tails between their tails.”

Harper managed to smile. A small, bitter smile.

The Nietzscheans hadn’t run away. They hadn’t even politely walked away. No. They had stayed. Stayed and slaughtered. Stayed, slaughtered and laughed.

Oh, God, yes. Harper could hear them in the back of his mind. The laugher. The screaming of the dying people. The pleas and the cursing. But most of all, he could hear the laughter.

The laughter he had run away from.

50 million people.

Oh, God.

* * *

Harper lay on his bed. How long he’d lain there, he had no idea.

He hadn’t gotten up, eaten, talked or done anything except sleep and stare at the ceiling above his head.

The rest of the crew had tried to pierce through the cloak of grief and guilt which he had dug himself into, but he would just shut them out.

Even Rommie had tried, but he had quite abruptly asked for privacy mode to be engaged. She had quietly shut her mouth and left his room.

He didn’t want to talk to anybody. He didn’t want to see anybody.

It wasn’t just the grief that was killing him. No, that hardly affected him at all. He was too used to people he cared about dying. His entire family had. All his friends had. No, the grief hardly had any effect on him. His heart was too hardened to care about the 50 million people who had died, might they have been complete strangers or people he knew.

No, it was the guilt that was killing him.

The old guilt which had forced him to flee earth all those year ago, was coming back now. The guilt over getting hundreds of people to participate in the revolution. The guilt over pasting a fake smile on his face and reassuring hundreds of them that of course they’d win. The guilt over helping smuggle the huge cratefuls of the ammunition which had probably ended up killing more humans than Nietzscheans. The guilt over helping set it all up and giving everybody the hope to fight with, and then running away.

He had run away.

50 million people.


	7. Chapter 7

Three weeks later, talk of the revolution was still strong. Everywhere they went, everybody knew about it. Every single mail call which they received contained some kind of information about it. Every world they stopped at, every docking station, and every planet, everybody talked about it.

Harper had drawn completely into himself. He refused to talk to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. He refused to come out of his quarters unless there was some work that needed to be done, and that only when the ship was threatening to come apart unless he helped.

The reason he had shut everybody out wasn’t only because of the guilt which threatened to engulf him, and which he didn’t want anyone else knowing about, but also because he didn’t want anybody to find out about his connections with the revolution.

He had managed to avoid most questions that Beka and Dylan had thrown at him. Such as, if he’d known about the revolution, or if he’d known anybody who’d died in it. He had also managed to avoid doing anything suspicious which would make anybody ask him any questions. That one incident in Command with Trance had been close. Way too close.

Now, he made sure to go around in long sleeved shirts. Nobody could find out. Nobody could. There was no way he was going to be thrown back into his past. He had already run away from it once. He wasn’t sure if he could do it again.

* * *

Dylan quietly sipped his cup of coffee, leaning against the piloting chair on which Tyr sat, leafing through a book. Beka was leaning on the railing behind him.

All three of them were watching the screen in front of them as that month’s mail went scrolling past.

Beka sighed and pushed a few buttons on the control panel beside her. “Only damn junk mail.” She muttered.

Rev chuckled as he quietly walked into the room, his eyes quickly skimming over the letters which were flying across the screen.

Suddenly, the letters froze and a red light started blinking in the corner.

“A voice and visual mail. Looks like it’s official.” Beka said, frowning at the red light and praying that it wasn’t another invitation to some fancy dinner somewhere.

Dylan took another sip. “Put it through. Let’s hear it.”

Beka punched in some more commands and then leaned onto the railing, looking at the screen where a tall Nietzschean had suddenly appeared.

Tyr glanced up from his book. “He is from the Drago-Katzov pride. Quite far from his home world too.”

Dylan frowned and motioned for Beka to put the voice message through.

Beka frowned at the controls at her finger tips. “It’s not a direct contact, Dylan. It’s a universal message that has been beamed out to every ship in any nearby galaxies.” She stared at the buttons. “Only, I can’t access it. The damn file won’t open.” She muttered.

The Command door swished open and Harper walked in, not looking at any of them. He quietly walked over to Beka, reached past her and punched another button.

Immediately, the screen came to life as the message started.

Harper was about to turn around and leave, when suddenly, the image on the screen caught his eye.

He froze and considered just walking on, but he had to have another look.

It couldn’t be. No. After all these years, his mind must be playing tricks on him. He blinked a few times and stole a quick glance over his shoulder.

His breath caught in his throat.

Yes. There was no mistaking that image.

His eyes widened in panic and the hair on the back of his neck immediately rose.

That was one of the night patrol Nietzscheans. From earth.

He immediately crouched and his hand slid down to his knife as realities shifted. But all he felt by his shoe was his pant leg.

His mind slowly cleared and his breathing slowed down.

This wasn’t earth, Seamus, he reasoned with himself. You’re on the Andromeda now. Not earth. That guy can’t hurt you again. He slowly stood up again.

He took a few deep breath and closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, he saw three pairs of eyes on him. The fourth pair was still concentrated on the book he held in his lap.

He forced a grin onto his white face.

“I feel a cold coming on.” He stammered out. “Gonna go down to the med deck and get some IBs.” he said, grinning at them.

Slowly, the three frowning heads turned back around to the image on the screen as the Nietzschean started talking.

Harper drew in a shaky breath. Okay, you dodged that one pretty well. Now, get your ass out of here and don’t show your face until the message is gone and forgotten. He nodded his head. Yeah, that’s what he’ll do. Go off and hide somewhere. On a ship meant for 4000 people, he could find himself some hiding spot where nobody could find him.

Just as he was about to leave, he heard the Nietzschean say something.

“Crystallia.”

He froze. The hairs on the back of his neck immediately rose again as he stopped breathing. No. He couldn’t have said that.

Why was he saying that? Why? He started breathing again, the breaths coming in short, hysterical bursts as he tried to force himself to move towards the door. He couldn’t attract any more attention to himself than he already did.

But why did the Nietzschean say that? Why? How did he know that? Oh, my God!

Then, through his panic, the Nietzschean’s words filtered into his mind again.

“It is strongly believed that the initiators of the revolution were all members of this world wide cult named Crystallia. The name itself can be roughly translated as ‘hope’. The language used by this cult amongst themselves and used as the cults name is Dyrillia, which spread across the world through prisons and refugee camps at the exact same pace as the cult itself. The cult was originated by a man named Daxus Murray, who is currently being held in custody for a terrorist attack which occurred years ago when he blew up some major Nietzschean headquarters. Over the years, it spread throughout the world and its members started appearing from everywhere, ranging from filthy low lives from the street to notorious and wealthy businessmen. All members were required to become fluent in Dyrillian, which enabled them to communicate at anytime and anywhere without being understood by anybody else, including Nietzschean patrol units. The cult itself was involved in many terrorist attacks, illegal demonstrations and various acts of vandalism over the years, including several fatalities, almost all of them being Nietzscheans. Even peaceful protests would turn into riots as members of this cult would become so enraged that they would even turn on their own members and shot them to death.”

Some of the fear drained out of Harper as he heard that. That was bullshit! They’d never shot any of their own! The Nietzschean had done that. He clenched his fists as his panic was replaced by anger. Damn them. Those lying bastards.

And the message went on. The other four crew members in the room were so absorbed with listening to what the Nietzschean was saying, that they didn’t notice Harper’s white face and panicked breathing and anger.

“Although the three leaders of this cult weren’t present at the revolution, their hiding place was very quickly discovered and all three are currently being held in custody.”

Harper let out a slow breath. Pez was still alive. Being held prisoner, yes. But he was still alive. Okay, the situation wasn’t totally lost. Pez was still alive.

That was the first time thoughts of his best friend had filtered into his mind. He hadn’t heard from him in years. Funny that now, his cover risking being blown any minute, the entire galaxy having gone mad and the big score having been brutally squashed, that Harper thought about Pez. Now of all times.

“Although the revolution had been successfully crushed, the threat of more such events taking place is very evident. Such revolutions do nothing but endanger the public wellbeing of our people and put false ideas into their heads.”

Harper snorted, his eyes glinting with anger now. This was just the top! Those lying bastards. Beka had turned around at the snort, but Harper quickly put his hand over his mouth and pretended to be coughing. She frowned but turned back around to listen.

“Therefore, as a precautionary step, we are conducting a galaxy wide man hunt for anybody who has ever been a member of this cult. Once discovered, the members will be brought to the closest Drago-Katzov pride occupied planet within their system and will be punished accordingly there. It does not matter how long ago or for how long these people were members of the cult, we want to punish all of them. All of the members on earth have already been dealt with, but there are hundreds, quite possibly, thousands who have escaped to nearby planets or ships.”

Harper froze as all the blood drained from his face. His breath caught in his throat again and he stared at the screen, wide eyed. Man hunt? Punished?

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Shit. He bit his lip to keep from trembling. Oh, my God, what was he gonna do? What the hell was he gonna do? They couldn’t catch him. No way. He wouldn’t let them touch him every again.

He quietly shook his head. No. Unless his fellow crew members knew how to identify a Crystallia member, he’d be clear. All he had to do was make up some bogus story on what he did on earth during his time there and carefully eliminate any details having to do with the cult.

He firmly nodded his head. Yeah, that’s what he’d do.

He carefully made his face blank and pretended to be watching the screen curiously.

As the commentator kept on going, Tyr put his book down and glanced up at the screen, listening.

Harper briefly glanced at him but bit down hard on his lip. Shit. Tyr would be able to see through any fake façade he’d try. He’d have to be careful. Very careful. But what was he afraid of? He’d lied hundreds of times in his life and gotten away with it. He could get away with it again.

“The way to identify any members is quite simple. All members are required to have a tattoo burned onto their right arms. It is a very simplistic graphic, consisting of three black stars, all at the vertices of a small triangle. For a less visual identification mark, all members are required to be fluent in Dyrillian, and also have a secret handshake which they use as a formal greeting amongst each other.”

Cold sweat ran down Harper’s neck. The situation was slowly slipping out of his control. He considered running away, but he knew that Rommie could stop him in seconds. He started sweating madly as he chewed on his lower lip, his eyes scanning around the room, looking for a way out. But this was a High Guard Star ship, not earth. If the ship didn’t want somebody leaving, then that somebody didn’t leave. He took a quiet, shaky breath. Whatever would happen, he’d have to hide his tattoo and act dumb. He tried to keep his eyes blank as he stared at the screen, praying he didn’t tremble.

“Each individual makes a sign with their right hands, making a circle with their middle finger and their thumb, and extend the other three fingers straight up. For the handshake, they simply touch their three extended fingers together. This is a universal sign and is used by all members.”

Harper started shaking, his thoughts flying around. This was getting too dangerous. Way too dangerous. How the hell did that Nietzschean know everything anyway? They had been so careful to keep everything secret. Daxus? No, he wouldn’t have told even if they would have tortured him. But who then? Who the hell would tell them? Harper! Stop thinking about crap like that, it doesn’t matter how they know, it just mattered that they do know. And if he were caught, he’d be punished. Shit. He was going to wipe the sweat off his forehead which was rolling down his face, but his hands were so tightly clenched in fists in his pockets that he didn’t think he could move them.

“If any members are found on any nearby planets or ships, they are asked to immediately report to the Drago-Katzov pride occupied planet closest to them. If members are caught by others, the reward for bringing them in is 20,000 thrones per member. For the last alternative, if any people are caught trying to hide a member, they, along with the member, will be taken in for proper punishment. My pride and I appreciate any help anyone can lend us so we can put an end to this small and annoying incident once and for all, and can successfully wipe out the entire Crystallia clan. I thank you for your cooperation.”

The screen went blank.

For a moment, all five people in the room did nothing but stare at the empty screen, thinking their own thoughts.

Harper glanced over at all their faces, and then quietly started backing away, towards the door. Just a few more steps, just a few more steps, just a few more steps. This hummed through his mind as sweat still poured down his face. He couldn’t get caught now. Not now. After all the hell he’d been through and when he was finally happy. No. He didn’t want to go back to hell. No way.

He bit his lip and continued backing towards the door, praying Rommie wouldn’t notice anything, and also praying that none of the others would turn around.

Please don’t turn around, please don’t turn around, please don’t—

“Mr. Harper, I wouldn’t try to run anywhere any time soon, if you understand me correctly.” Tyr’s quiet voice sliced like a knife through the eerie silence and the insane humming in Harper’s mind.

He froze, his eyes widening in terror. He licked his dry lips. “Why not?” he asked, trying to keep his voice steady but only managing a frail squeak.

“Don’t take me for a fool, boy. I can smell your sweat from where I’m sitting, I can hear your heart running faster than a rabbit, and besides, I noticed that terrified, pale expression on your face as soon as the message came on.” He quietly turned over a page of his book. “Your face was reflecting off the screen.”

For a moment, a terrifying silence filled the room.

Right then, Harper knew he was about to lose. The entire situation would turn on him any second. In moments, his body went into the survivor mode he had lived with for years on earth. He spun around, his hand going down to his knife, (which he quickly yanked up when he realized there was nothing there) and within seconds, he was running madly towards the door.

He kept on running, his breath hammering in his lungs, his feet pounding on the metal floorboards. He continued running, not daring to look behind him.

He skidded to a stop beside a ladder and slid down it. He landed in a heap but leapt up and continued running.

His mind kept on flashing back and forth between the brightly lit corridors of the Andromeda, and the dimly lit streets of earth. For a moment, he thought he saw a drunk lying in the gutters at his feet. He quickly leapt over him, ignoring the fact that when he quickly glanced over his shoulder, there was nothing there.

Suddenly, he heard feet running madly above him. He ducked down, and ran half crouching down the hallway, praying that Rommie’s internal sensors wouldn’t be able to catch him.

But it was too late. He heard Dylan yelling out and ask the ship where he was, and Rommie promptly telling him that he was right underneath them.

He heard their feet stop, and moments later, Tyr’s legs came sliding down the ladder behind him. Harper’s breath quickened as panic set in and he continued running, careering madly down the corridor, smashing into walls and ladders along the way, but never stopping.

But it was useless.

Tyr ran easily and slowly after the fleeing human, deliberately not catching up to him. He wanted to make him tired before he caught him. That way, the little man would struggle less and put up less of a fight. It was always easier to talk to people when they were tired.

His lungs burning and his legs wobbling, Harper stole one last glance over his shoulder. As he saw the quickly gaining Nietzschean running towards him, he slowed down to a walk and turned around, facing him. He stood as straight as he could muster, staring the taller man into the eyes.

Tyr slowed down as he jogged up to the shorter man and stared him in the eyes.

He didn’t grab him or threaten him, for he knew that Harper could fight really dirty if he felt his life was threatened and he didn’t want to accidently hurt his fellow crewmember.

Still breathing hard, Harper glared up at him.

“Go on. Slug me a few times until I can’t move anymore. That’ll make your life tons easier.” He spat.

Tyr slowly shook his head. “Hurting you won’t accomplish anything. I promise I won’t touch you if I have no reason to, and I won’t have any reason to hurt you if you aren’t a wanted criminal.” He didn’t move but continued looking into the glaring, hate filled eyes. “Roll up your right shirt sleeve, boy, and this whole ordeal will be over.”

Harper’s face went a shade paler, if such a thing were possible, and his entire body tensed up to run again.

Looking into his eyes, Tyr saw the expression of a hunted animal. A scared, hunted animal. My God, the young man had a lot of hate in him for someone so young. Then again, Harper wasn’t so young. No. The boy was much older than every crew member on board this ship. Even older than he himself was.

“And what if I want to keep what’s on my arm to myself, huh?” he spat.

Tyr raised an eyebrow. “Then I’ll have to see what’s on your arm for myself. But trust me, it’ll be much less painful if you do it.”

For a moment, Harper’s scared eyes flitted around the corridor, as if debating the idea within himself. Then his eyes suddenly hardened and a deep hatred glittered within their depths, and he viciously ripped his shirt sleeve up, revealing the tattoo.

Tyr stared at the thin, pale arm on which the three tiny stars lay, piercing through the sharp light in the corridor like tiny lights.

Harper quickly pulled his shirt sleeve down again. “There. Now you’ve seen what you wanted to see, and you can politely fuck off.” He said through tightly clenched teeth.

With that, he spun around and started down the corridor.

Reaching out with one arm, Tyr grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him back.

“I’m sorry, boy. But I can’t allow a wanted criminal to waltz around this ship as freely as he wants. You’re coming with me.”

Harper squirmed in his grasp. “You can’t do anything to me.” He hissed. “Up here, we’re both equals. You can’t touch me.”

Tyr nodded, a faint smile on his lips. “That’s right. _I_ can’t do anything to you, however, a person with a higher rank than you can. Let’s go pay a little visit to our first officer and captain, shall we?”

* * *

Harper sat in a chair, his hands clutching the arm rests, his entire face blank as he stared at the floor, his eyes bitter and hard.

Beka sighed. She pushed herself off the desk onto which she was leaning.

“Harper, all we want is for you to answer a few questions. Like, for example, when you joined the cult, and why—”

“And what if I don’t feel like answering any of your fucking questions? Huh?” he spat.

Beka stared down at him. She couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of hurt flicker within her over his vicious words. Harper and her had been friends for years, and he had never lashed out at her. Playfully and sarcastically avoided any discussion of his past, yes, but he had never unleashed the pent up hatred he kept simmering inside of him at her. At Tyr, at Rev, and at Dylan, yes. But never her.

She bit her lip and stared down at the floor. She quickly glanced up at the Dylan, but he was just staring out the window, obviously not knowing how to handle the situation.

She took a deep breath.

“Okay. If you won’t talk to me, then fine, I won’t ask you any questions. But all I ask is that you listen to me. Okay?”

She got no response. His blank face continued staring at the floor, his hands clutching the arm rests so hard that his knuckles were white.

She crouched down in front of him. “Seamus? Will you at least listen?”

She got a tiny nod from him.

Well, at least she had gotten a nod. She looked at him, trying to pierce through that veil of hatred he had erected around himself.

“Harper, I know you’re not used to having anybody care about you. I know that you’re not used to having anybody trying to fight for you. And I also know that you’ve gotten so used to having anybody you care about or anybody you let inside of you hurt you or abandon you, that you learned years ago, that the best way to survive is to shut everyone out, so that nobody could hurt you.” She said quietly. She was relieved to see him slowly relax and his eyes soften slightly. He was slowly letting his shield down.

“But, Seamus, what you don’t realize, is that you have us now. All of us. We’re your family, whether you like it or not, and we won’t leave you. This isn’t earth, this isn’t a place where the only thing you can look forward to is whether you wake up the next morning or not. We all care about you a lot, Harper. And we all want to help you. But we can’t help you unless you let us. And the way you can let us help you is by letting us in. None of us are going to hurt you. You know that.” She gently laid one of her hands onto his clenched one. Slowly, she could feel the tension leaving him.

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair, some of the color coming back into his face.

The entire room was silent. Dylan softly crossed the room and sat down on a chair across from Harper. Beka stayed on the floor, crouching in front of him, her hand gently laid on his.

Harper took a deep breath.

“The whole mess started when me and Pez were in jail. I won’t tell you why we were in jail, we just were. Pez was—is—my best friend. Has been since we were fourteen. We landed in jail when we were sixteen and had to stay there for a year.” Harper swallowed quickly as some of those memories came running back to him. He hurried on, hoping to keep thoughts of Rodney as far away as possible. “We met Daxus Murray there. We had no idea who he was, all we knew is that he spoke some screwed up language and always said stuff like ‘Crystallia Roxia’, whenever some prisoner was being dragged off for torture. The person would always calm down after he said it. So, Pez and me got curious and he taught us how to speak Dyrillian.”

“We didn’t use it much, only to talk to each other when Nietzschean guards were around. Then, after we got out, this drunk guy at the bar where we used to go all the time, told me about the cult, Crystallia. So Pez and I go and we become members, get the tattoo, learn the signal and the handshake, and so on. In the three years that followed, we did all kinds of junk for the cult. Blowing up a few Nietzschean buildings, going to street demonstrations, and going all over the place getting other people to join. And in case anybody believed what that Nietzschean was saying a while ago, it ain’t true that we ever shot any of our own. No, the guards would always come out and open fire on all of us after a while. Shoot, we didn’t even have guns to defend ourselves with, never mind the subs those guys used. We just had rocks and sticks.”

“So anyways, life goes on and then one of the three leaders dies, and Pez becomes the new leader. Then he starts talking about this huge revolution that he wants to organize. Daxus had always talked about it, and Pez wanted to try it out. I was against it from the very beginning. I knew it was stupid and pointless and that we didn’t have a chance in a million.”

Dylan nodded. “You can’t fight fire by breathing on it.” He said.

Harper’s eyes snapped open and he quickly glanced over at Dylan. A faint smile flickered across his face before he closed his eyes again and continued on. Damn, the man could understand things well. Just like Beka.

“But I don’t say anything about my thoughts. I tried to at first, but Pez was too damn excited, had his head up in the clouds, and he wouldn’t listen. I think he knew too, but he just wanted to do it for revenge, you know? Didn’t care if it worked or not. So I went and helped him.”

“I helped smuggle cratefuls of illegal guns and sticks of dynamite around everywhere, and I went around with him and convinced hundreds of people that the thing would actually work. Plastered a fake smile on my face for months. But then I couldn’t stand it anymore. I felt so guilty. So then I ran away.”

“Then I felt like a fucking hypocrite. A guilty hypocrite. So then I bum around on Galatia for a while, and then Beka finds me and then we find you, Dylan.” He slowly opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling, a faraway look in his eyes. He was remembering Pez. He hadn’t thought about his best friend for years. Man, he hadn’t seen him for a long time. Then, he blinked, and all thoughts of his past scattered. He looked up at Dylan. “End of story.”

Dylan and Beka both stared at the floor for a moment, contemplating what they had just heard.

They had both always known that Harper’s past had been tough, but this rebellious, wild life, neither of them had expected.

Beka stole an upward glance at the younger man. She was really tempted to ask him why he had been in jail, but she knew he would just smile and offer some stupid, sarcastic remark, such as ‘my good looks probably.’. She smiled. Whatever Harper wanted to keep hidden about himself, he always could. Always.

Dylan was pacing around the room, lost in thought.

Harper followed his captain around the room with his eyes. “So, boss. When are we gonna be passing any Dragon occupied planets?”

Dylan stopped pacing and stared down at him, and Beka, who was in the middle of standing up, froze, and stared at him as well.

Harper gave both of them a thin smile. “Come on, guys. Don’t be stupid and naïve. It really doesn’t suit either of you.” He sighed and leaned forward.

“Look, we all heard what the Dragon said. If anybody is caught trying to hide the likes of me, they’ll be dealt with the exact same way that all the members will be dealt with, and trust me, you don’t wanna know what they’ll do to you. I’ve spent my entire life living underneath their little thumbs, and trust me, it takes years until you can take it without howling.” He attempted a weak smile, but abandoned it when he noticed that neither of his bosses were smiling back.

“Look, like Beka said, you are all my family. I never really had a family before, and now that I have one, I’m not gonna drag them through hell with me just because I’m too much of a coward to face it alone. I’m not gonna put you guys through that. It just ain’t fair.”

Beka crossed her arms, her eyes clouded with worry. “But what if we run away? What if we just slipstream from one solar system into another until we’re so far away that they’ll never find us? I mean, this is a High Guard ship, they’ll never suspect us.”

Harper gently shook his head. “Beka, these are Nietzscheans we’re dealing with. I grew up with these Nietzscheans around me. I know them better than anybody else, and I know that if they want to find someone, then they do. No matter how long it takes or how hard they have to look, they will always find that someone. It’s no use running away. All it’ll do is waste precious time and energy, and get you guys mixed up in this mess too. And that really ain’t fair.” He said softly.

Dylan shook his head. “But there must be something we can do. I mean, what about a trail? What about evidence? I mean, you’re not an earth citizen anymore, so legally they can’t connect you with any of these crimes—”

Harper gently smiled up at him. “Dylan, your blind idealism won’t work here. These are Nietzscheans we’re dealing with. The words fair and legal don’t exist in their vocabularies, especially when thousands of kludges are concerned. We might as well be the dirt underneath their feet for all they care. There’s nothing we can do. The easiest thing we can do here, is to just let me turn myself in, let me get punished and then move on. It’ll all be over in a few days. It’s no big deal. There’s too many people who are gonna be dealt with for them to make it a big deal.”

He quietly stood up and walked towards the door, gently squeezing Beka’s arm as he passed by, and giving Dylan a thin smile. The smile was supposed to be encouraging, but there was too much hardness in it for it to be encouraging.

Just before the young engineer reached the door, Dylan turned towards him and looked down at him and asked the question he didn’t really want to know the answer to.

“Mr. Harper, how exactly are they going to punish you?”

Harper stopped and turned back around, looking up at the tall captain. He smiled again, that hard, bitter smile. He gently shook his head.

“You don’t want to know, Dylan. Just trust me. You don’t want to know.” He said softly, then turned and walked out the door.

Dylan stared after him.

That expression in his eyes. That smile on his face. They were all way too old for a face that young.

But Harper wasn’t young. No. He was already old. He had lived life for way too long.

Thinking about it, Dylan knew that it had been too long since the day Seamus Harper had been born.

* * *

Harper walked down the corridor, slowly making his way to Command. They were getting closer and closer to Denira 51. It was one of the many tiny planets scattered throughout this solar system which was occupied by the Dragons.

God, how he hated them.

Oh, well. This would be the last time he would have to deal with them.

Technically, he could run away and be done with them now, but no, he wasn’t going to run away. He sighed. It was going to be painful, but it wasn’t fair to shove everyone else through hell just because he was a coward.

Besides, he had run away once. He wasn’t going to run away again.

No way. He was through with being a coward.

Biting down on his lip and keeping his head up, he walked towards the Command door, determined not to let anyone else see how scared he was.


	8. Chapter 8

He stood in front of the screen, keeping his eyes on the ground. Never make eye contact with a Nietzschean who was within pain inflicting distance. He had learned that long ago.

With the night patrol it had been different. They had been on the same terms. Both of them had knives on them, and both of them could run. However, those Nietzscheans who had sentenced him to a year in prison had his whole life in their hands, and he had nothing.

Now, as he faced the Nietzschean guard on the screen who was processing him before he was allowed to go down for his punishment, his life lay in their hands again, and he once again had nothing.

“State your name.”

He considered lying for a moment, but he knew it wouldn’t do him any good at the end. They’d find out anyway. They always did.

“Seamus Zelazny Harper, my lord.” He responded, keeping his eyes on the ground.

He could feel rather than see Beka’s eyebrows shoot up at the way he was addressing him. He smiled grimly. Beka really had no idea what life on a Nietzschean occupied planet was like.

Dylan was shifting around uncomfortably, torn between starting to yell at the Nietzschean guard and telling Rommie to turn around and run.

“Age?”

“Twenty-three, my lord.”

“Born in a camp or the city?”

Harper suddenly forgot where he was and could swear that he was standing in front of that judge again. Only when he saw Dylan out of the corner of his eye did he remember where he was. After all these years, the questions were still the same. Amazing.

“In a camp, my lord. Number X5.” He answered. He knew the next question without needing to hear it. Subdivision.

“Subdivision?”

He smiled faintly but then quickly wiped the smile off his face. He didn’t need any extra trouble.

“C, my lord.”

The guard typed a few things into a panel he was facing. He raised an eyebrow.

“You were in prison.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, my lord. For a year.”

“What was the offence?”

Harper bit his lip and refused to look at Dylan, Beka, Tyr, Trance, Rev or Rommie who had all turned and were looking at him curiously. God, he wanted to die. Right then and there. Why did it matter anyway? It was none of the asshole’s business!

He was about to glance up, but decided that keeping his eyes down would be best.

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern, my lord. I did my time. Every second of it. I served it from the moment they threw me into the cell, and I didn’t see a wink of daylight for an entire year until I was released.”

“I’ll decide what’s my concern or not, you insolent street rat. Now, are you going to answer my question, or are we going to have to add some more to that punishment of yours?”

Harper winced. Man, what a choice. The bastards sure knew what buttons to push.

Please forgive me, Beka. Please don’t think any less of me, Dylan. Please don’t shun me, Rommie, Trance and Rev.

“Illegal drug running.” He whispered.

“Speak up, boy!”

“Drug running.” He said, his voice barely any louder, but the guard heard him.

He heard Beka’s and Rev’s gasps, he saw Dylan’s eyebrow shoot up and he saw Rommie and Trance’s shocked face expressions. Tyr’s face was blank, as always.

Harper squeezed his eyes shut.

This really was the day for his past to be kicking him while he was down. God, he hated earth.

He really, really hated earth.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to see any of their faces. He turned off his hearing too, not wanting to hear them.

So he hardly heard him when the guard finally nodded his head and told him that he was allowed to enter right away.

He just turned around and walked out of Command, slowly walking down to the hangar deck.

Just before he strapped himself into the piloting chair of the Maru and started the engines, he comforted himself with the fact that they didn’t know the worst of his crimes.

They didn’t know about the drinking, about the hookers, about the stealing, about the drug dealing, and they didn’t know about what he had done on Galatia in order to get some money.

He shuddered. There would be no way in hell that they’d find that out.

He revved the engines and asked Andromeda to open the hangar deck doors.

As he slowly lifted up and flew out of the hangar and into empty space, he was suddenly reminded of Twinkie.

He smiled.

After all these years, he had never thought of his and Pez’s first ship. He laughed out loud.

So many things had happened since he had learned how to fly that piece of junk. So many things. Deep down inside he was still thankful for that little ship, even thought it had been such a piece of crap.

Carefully maneuvering himself around other ships floating around the planet and some asteroids in the way, he smiled again. If hadn’t been for Twinkie, he wouldn’t be able to do this at all.

At least now, he didn’t have to kick the lid off the engine anymore when it over heated.

* * *

Hours later, four strong hands grabbing his arms, he was being dragged down a cold corridor, iron bars on both sides of him. Through his barely conscious mind he managed to realize that he was in a prison. Somewhere. Where he was, he had no idea.

He closed his eyes as his head fell forward and hung from his neck, not responding to anything his mind was telling it to do.

From the moans, screams and sobs coming from the cells he was dragged by, he knew that there had to be hundreds of other people in the prison, and all of them must have been punished like him.

From the few snatches of coherent conversation which filtered through his pain filled mind, he could piece together a few Dyrillian words. All of these people must have been members.

He was hardly aware of the dragging stopping and one of the hands letting go of his arm and the rustle of keys being moved about, and the creaking of a heavy metal door being opened.

* * *

He was roughly thrown inside, landing hard on the hard concrete floor.

As he lay there, unable to move, he felt a trickle of blood running down his cheeks. He groggily tried opening his eyes.

As his tired eyes tried to pierce through the darkness, he could see several other dark figures sitting crouching in the cell with him.

A few of them were lying on the floor, barely conscious like him, a few were sitting up, looking around, apparently in better shape than the others. In the corner lay a little pile of two or three bodies. From the way they didn’t move and from the stench of rotting flesh which had engulfed the entire cell, Harper knew they were dead.

He groaned. His entire back felt like it was on fire. He could hardly move without hissing in pain.

He didn’t want to move at all, just stay there on the floor, lying there completely sprawled out, slowly letting his blood seep all over the floor, until he looked up and saw one man’s eyes on him.

It wasn’t just his eyes that Harper noticed, it was his smile. His skin crawled and his eyes widened in panic as soon as he saw that smile.

That was Rodney’s smile. Shit, shit, shit. He had to get up. He couldn’t stay there like that. Fuck, he didn’t even have his knife on him. Damn.

He clenched his teeth and pushed himself up, ignoring the screams of pain which coursed up and down his body, he slowly managed to drag himself into a corner where nobody was and curled up in it. Sweat was pouring down his face and he didn’t open his mouth because he knew that he’d just start screaming. He just stayed there, his breath hissing in and out of his mouth, his tired eyes scanning the cell looking for the man.

The man had turned away from him and was quietly dozing, his head leaning against the cold bricks of the cell.

Harper’s eyes started to flutter closed, but he forced them open. Oh, how he wanted to sleep. But he couldn’t sleep. He remembered only too well what had happened the last time he had gone to sleep in the same cell as one of those smiling bastards.

It would never happen again. Of that he was sure. No way in hell would he let that happen again.

He tried to curl up even tighter, but his back exploded in such a spasm of pain, that it took all of his efforts not to scream.

* * *

Hours earlier, he had landed the Maru in one of the many docking stations on the planet. It had taken him forever to find a parking spot, but after a while, a small glider had left and Harper had quickly nabbed his spot.

Then he had gone to the headquarters which were right beside the enormous prison where all the punishments were going to occur.

Right from the beginning, he had to fight his way through a throng of hundreds of people milling around. He had to push and shove his way through, sometimes having to ram through a wall of people just to get through.

He couldn’t believe how many people were there. Hundreds of them, all dressed in different clothes, ranging from the filthy rags of the street bums to the skanky skirts of the hookers to the neatly pressed business suits of the businessmen.

Harper saw mothers dragging children held firmly by the wrists and infants clutched to their chests. He saw teenagers screaming and yelling, shaking their fists in the air and hurling rocks at the headquarters. He saw older couples sobbing and hugging, muttering ‘Crystallia Roxia’ over and over again under their breaths.

He nearly tripped over a person lying on the ground. He barely glanced down before he realized that the person was dead. Probably trampled from the crowd. He shrugged and kept on going, hardly able to breath from the stench of human sweat and filth.

* * *

When he had finally pushed himself into the headquarters, one of the guards snatched him up from the crowd and he had to state his name again, and his age and all the other junk. Then he had to show his tattoo for confirmation.

As soon as he had pulled his shirt sleeve back down, he had been grabbed by two muscular guards and dragged into one of the many doors connected to the long hallway which made up the entire building.

He was shoved inside so roughly that he nearly went sprawling across the floor, but he managed to stay upright after he went crashing into a hard object lying at his waist level. He grabbed onto it to steady himself and was about to turn around, when he saw what he was holding onto.

He froze.

It was a table.

A long, white table. With straps hanging on its side.

Immediately, all the color drained from his face and his eyes widened in panic.

He spun around, his survivor mode kicking in.

He was just about to run, when he heard a chuckle and the guard grabbed him around the waist and slammed him onto the table.

He squirmed and kicked out, trying desperately to get out of the strong grasp he was in.

His mind was going insane, voices in his head screaming at him to get away from there.

He was gasping for breath, muttering curses between clenched teeth as he slowly felt his body giving out on him.

No, no, no! He couldn’t give up now. No! He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to go through this pain again. No! Not again.

He kept on squirming, the guard holding him down with one hand.

Just as he was about to give up, the guard started laughing.

The old hatred exploded within him and he started struggling and fighting with new strength, hissing and screaming.

But the laughter just kept going. And going. And going.

Even as he felt his shirt being ripped off of his back, even when he felt his arms and legs being strapped onto the table, even when he felt the first lashes of the whip cracking across his back, even when he felt himself sliding around on the table in his own blood, the laughter continued.

And towards the end, when his mind slowly went numb and the pain exploded all around his body, making him feel as if he was on fire, he started screaming.

Screaming in pain, screaming in rage, screaming in frustration, he didn’t know.

All he knew was the he screamed. And screamed and screamed until he finally went unconscious.

* * *

The next moment that he was truly conscious and aware of his surroundings was when he had dragged himself into that corner of the cell.

He lay there, not caring about the pain in his back which felt like a constant burning, not caring about the coldness of the cell floor, not caring about the stench of the rotting bodies and the quiet squeaking of a rat somewhere nearby, and not caring that he felt his own blood flowing in rivers across the floor.

It was all too much.

The laughter, the pain, that smile. He couldn’t take it anymore.

He closed his eyes, determined not to open them again until he was safely back on the Andromeda, but then he remembered that man, and his eyes flew back open. No, he couldn’t fall asleep. He had to stay awake.

Once more, he was all alone. There was no one to take care of him and watch out for him except for himself.

He was all alone.

* * *

He didn’t struggle this time. Not only was he exhausted and not only did ever slight movement make his back explode in new pain, but he didn’t want to give them any reason to laugh.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to take it. So he kept quiet.

This time, after they had dragged him from the cell and dragged his half dead body down the corridor, he hadn’t made a sound except for a small wince and then a gasp of pain when they had first wrenched him up from the floor where he had been lying.

They had taken him into another room and had thrown his battered body into a chair and had strapped his arms and legs down.

He found that he didn’t really care anymore. Whatever the hell they were gonna do, they could go ahead and do it.

His head was still too heavy for him to hold up and he could barely open his eyes so he didn’t even see what they were doing. He didn’t care anymore.

“I really don’t care anymore.” He mumbled to himself, his voice barely audible.

A guard leaned towards him. “What did you say, boy?”

Harper glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. God, why couldn’t the bastards leave him alone?

“I said, fuck off.” He mumbled a little louder, his sentence ending in a spasm of coughs which racked through his pain filled body and nearly made him collapse. The only reason he didn’t fall over was because the straps were firmly keeping him upright.

He heard the guard inhaling sharply. Then he felt, rather than saw, the distinct swishing of three bone blades hissing through the air before he felt the blades slicing through his cheeks in a terrifying back hand blow. His head smashed into the back of the chair he was sitting on and he could taste warm blood in his mouth. He nearly choked and spat it out.

Slowly, the blood dripped down his chin.

He found he didn’t even care about wiping it off.

He grimly smiled. He really didn’t care anymore.

He was just starting to wonder what they were up to, when he heard the hissing of a burning iron rod being brought towards his right arm.

He tensed up and clenched his teeth shut, wondering what they were going to burn over his tattoo.

As he felt the heat of the rod on his skin, he put his head down and tried not to whimper.

Sweat started to run down his face and he clenched his teeth so hard that he thought they might break.

Finally, the burning iron was pressed onto his skin. The sick stench of burning flesh and his own sweat crept up his nostrils and he started hissing from the pain.

The pain was so intense that his entire mind went blank from it.

The only thought going through his pain crazed mind was a silent prayer for it to end. For it all to end.

A tiny hiss of pain escaped his tightly shut lips from which a thin line of blood still dripped.

Sweat rolled down his face, the smell of it and his burning skin nearly making him nauseous.

Nearly losing his mind, he wasn’t aware of what his body was doing anymore.

While his mind droned on and on with that silent prayer of wishing it were all over, his left hand feebly groped through the empty air around him, desperately searching for something.

It took him a moment to remember what he was searching for, but after a while he remembered.

Pez.

Pez had been there the last time. Pez hadn’t left him. Pez never had.

His hand groped through the air, straining against the tight straps, searching for Pez’s hand.

But it wasn’t there.

He couldn’t find it.

Then he started to sob.

Whether they were tears of pain or tears of sorrow, he didn’t know.

His hand limply dropped onto the arm rest of the chair.

There was nobody there.

There was no hand to hold onto.

He was really alone.

Completely alone.


	9. Chapter 9

Slowly, he opened his eyes. It was bright. And clean. He could smell the disinfectant in the room. Maybe it was him. He didn’t know.

He blinked.

The entire room was much too bright and clean to be any planet building.

He frowned as he stared around.

The images around him were rather fuzzy, but after a while, he could see a blond head and a purple head and a brown head slowly coming into focus.

He squinted at the faces, trying to figure out who they were.

Slowly, his vision cleared and his mind started to function.

He was on med deck. On a bed. And beside him were Beka, Dylan and Trance.

Harper could see Rev walking into the room and pausing at the foot of his bed, staring down at him, concern in his eyes.

Trance was walking around the room, a flexi in one hand and the other hand nimbly adjusting the hundreds of tubes which seemed to be attached to his badly beaten body.

He looked up at Beka and Dylan who were sitting on chairs beside him.

Both of their faces were heavy and tired looking. By the looks of it, neither of them had had much sleep for a while.

Harper frowned. Why wouldn’t they have slept? Because of him? Impossible. They despised him now. They hated him. They wouldn’t care.

Suddenly, he completely woke up. His eyes widened.

He was on the Andromeda. He blinked, praying that this wasn’t just a dream.

But it had to be. How else would he have gotten onto the Andromeda unless this were a dream?

No, no, no. The last time he had been conscious was when he had been tossed back into the cell, his back and arm burning so badly that his entire mind was exploding from the pain.

How the hell did he wind up on med deck? What the hell happened?

He tried to say something, but all that came out was a tiny groan.

Immediately, three pairs of eyes snapped up and stared at him.

“Harper?” Trance asked, leaning closer to him.

He blinked a few times to clear his vision a little more.

“Hey there, purpleness. How ya doin?” he said, his voice sounding raspy and the end of his sentence being lost in a spasm of coughs.

Trance’s face broke into a brilliant smile. “You’re alive!”

Harper gave her a small grin. “Yup. Appears that way.”

Beka was staring at him, tears of relief brimming her eyes. Harper looked at her. “Hey boss. Nice to see you. Now, those can’t be tears in those baby blues I see, huh? The last time I saw you cry was when you rammed the Maru into those two vessels and nearly totaled her.”

Beka bit her lip, laughing and nearly crying at the same time. “Oh, shut up, Seamus Harper.”

Harper looked down at Dylan. “Hey there, Dylan. Looks like you won’t have to worry about finding a new engineer. You can get that off your to-do-list.”

Dylan laughed. “I’m very glad to have you back, Mr. Harper. Truly, I am.”

He glanced down to the foot of his bed where Rev was. “Hey, Rev! It’s good to see you.” He shook his head. “Man, never thought I’d say that.” He said, grinning at the Magog. Rev chuckled and gave him a small bow.

Harper looked around at the circle of smiling, relieved faces.

“Okay, I’m sorry if I’m gonna ruin the whole ‘we’re so glad you’re alive, Harper’ thing, and not that I don’t love it, but I’m itching to know how the hell I got here. Correct me if I’m wrong but the last time I was conscious, I was lying in some hell hole with hundreds of other people, rotting away, and now I’m on med deck. Somebody please fill me in.”

Trance turned around and started filling some of the empty bags hanging above Harper’s head. She didn’t want to remember the sight of Harper being carried onto the deck in Tyr’s arms, leaving a trail of blood on the floor below him, his entire body covered in blood and so many cuts and lashes that Trance doubted he was even alive. His pants had been torn, his blond hair had been covered in dirt and blood and three deep cuts sliced through his cheek, around which, his pale skin was starting to swell up and darken. Tyr had silently and incredibly gently lain the younger man’s small, battered body onto the bed and had advised her to hurry for he didn’t think he had much time left.

Beka glanced down at the floor and bit her lip. She didn’t want to remember everything that she had been through in the past few days.

But she had to. For Harper. He had a right to know. She took a deep breath.

“A few hours after you left, I couldn’t stand just sitting around and not knowing what was going on down there, so I send out a tracking signal for the Maru. Once we found the Maru, we tracked down the prison which was nearby. We had guessed that you were in there, so Rommie opened up a communications port with one of the guards and we asked how we could get you out of there. He said that anybody who wasn’t picked up within three days of their punishment would be sent off to a Magog base nearby where they would be kept for consumption.” Beka shuddered, remembering how her skin had crawled at the matter of fact way the guard had said that.

Harper simply shrugged and nodded. “Much better solution than letting hundreds of bodies rot in the prison. Makes too much of a stench.” He said, voice sounding as matter of fact as the guards had.

Beka tried not to appear appalled at what he had said. She doubted that he had ever heard of such things as funerals or respecting the dead. To him, the dead were just things that took up room and were in the way.

“Anyway, so a day after you left, Tyr, Dylan and I took a pod down to the station and rammed our way through that throng out there until we were in. Then we walked down the corridor with a guard who stopped at your cell, unlocked it and then pointed at you.” Beka swallowed hard. She was trying to push aside the memory of seeing Harper’s bloody, beaten body lying unconscious on the cold cement floor of the cell. Blood was running across the floor from where he lay, but in the dim light, Beka couldn’t tell if it was his or someone else’s. She looked around at the dozen other half dead bodies lying sprawled around the cell, some muttering to themselves and some just staring blankly around. She tried not to stare at the pile of corpses which lay in the corner of the cell.

Good God, how she hated planets. Especially Nietzschean occupied ones. How anybody could survive in this kind of hell hole, she didn’t know. But the person lying at her feet, half beaten to death, blood running from his lips, his arm so badly burnt that the skin was black and so mangled that Beka thought it didn’t belong to him, was a person who had spent his entire life on planets such as these.

And he had survived. Somehow, some way, he had survived.

Seeing him lying on the cold, cement floor like that, beaten nearly to death, rage filled Beka and she was about to turn around and smash the guards face in. How the hell did anybody— _anybody_ —think that they had the right to treat another human being like that? She whipped around, her hands clenched in fists, but Tyr had grabbed her arm and with one look had warned her not to say or do anything. Still shaking in rage and the slight feelings of guilt which had started to seep in, she turned away from the guard and watched as Tyr walked over to Harper, stepping over the many other bodies which lay in the way.

“So then Tyr picked you up and carried you out and we all fought our way through the throng again, Dylan and me throwing people out of the way and Tyr carrying you. Then we got back to the Maru and got the pod and flew back here. As soon as Tyr put you on that bed, Trance started fixing you up.”

“The cuts are healing nicely, although some of the scars will be there for the rest of your life, but I think you knew that. The cuts on your cheek and the swelling will all soon be gone, and your arm is healing nicely too. The only real marks left there are the old tattoo and the—new one.” Trance said gently, not looking at him but continuing her work.

Harper had known all of this before Trance had even opened her mouth. Too many times had he watched his own body nursing itself back to health not to know what would mend and what wouldn’t.

“How long have I been asleep for?” he asked.

Dylan glanced up. “Three days.”

Harper raised his eyebrows. Three days.

Beka was staring at the floor. She closed her eyes. Those three days had been hell.

Guilt and sorrow had torn her apart as she sat next to Harper’s bed side, wanting to talk to him and coax him out of his delirium, but never finding the right words.

She had abandoned him.

Right when he had needed her most, she had abandoned her.

She had broken the one real promise he had ever made her make. Years ago, when she had first picked him up on Galatia, he had made her promise him never to leave him. No matter what happened. Beka hadn’t understood at the time how serious the promise was, but now she did. She had sworn to always be there for him, and she had deserted him. Not only had she abandoned a crew member, which she had always sworn never to do, but she had abandoned a friend. A friend whom she had sworn never to leave.

New tears brimmed her eyes as she glanced up at the frail, thin body lying stretched out on the bed in front of her.

Harper looked at her and smiled.

God, that smile. That smile. Not the cocky grin, but that smile. That gentle, understanding smile that was much older than his years.

“I’m sorry, Seamus. I’m sorry.” She whispered.

He reached out and gently squeezed her hand, hiding the grimace of pain which threatened to flicker across his face.

“It’s okay, boss. You had every right to be pissed off at me. After all, it bites pretty badly when you find out your employee ain’t the angel you thought he was. So I’m sorry too. I should have told you. Told you years ago. So, it’s okay. Besides, you had no way of knowing what they would do to me. I knew, but I wanted to spare you that.”

She smiled at him, wondering for the millionth time in her life how a person like Seamus Harper could exist. How somebody could have lead such a tormenting, pain filled life and still have such understanding and gentleness. And a sense of humor on top of it.

She glanced down at the floor and wryly shook her head.

And she had thought she was tough. She looked down at the young, blond engineer lying on the bed, the sheets underneath him still bloody from the numerous cuts across his back and arms, his smile still brilliantly shining on his face and his blue eyes sparkling.

* * *

Two days later, Harper declared that he would go absolutely insane if he would have to sit in bed for another minute.

He had barely been able to sleep, not only because the throbbing pain which constantly coursed up and down his body and which Trance couldn’t, no matter what she tried, stop, but also because of the nightmares which were haunting his sleep.

He’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night, his eyes filled with panic and his shirt soaked with sweat and he could only be calmed down after Beka or Dylan had come in and calmly talked to him until he remembered where he was.

So he didn’t sleep. He entertained himself in other ways.

He had Trance bring up some of his favorite toys from engineering and readjusted, rearranged and remade all of them. He played around with Rommie’s main data base, turning her hair into brilliant shades of green and maroon until the avatar had come marching into the room and had threatened to make the temperature in the room drop to 20 degrees below zero if he didn’t stop playing with her hair.

Two days after Harper had woken up, Dylan came marching onto the med deck, striding across the floor until he was standing inches away from the bed on which Harper was lying. His entire bed was covered in techno gadgets, half of which, Dylan couldn’t even identify.

He was greeted with a cocky grin.

“Hey there, Dylan.”

“Don’t hey there, Dylan, me, Mr. Harper. You want to explain to me what the hell you’re doing?”

Harper grinned up at him and pressed a button which elevated his head rest a little more.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“You know what the problem is!”

Harper continued grinning. “Why don’t you explain it to me?”

“I’m down in Command, trying to install the new boosters into Rommie’s system, when I turn around and ask the nanoboots to hand them to me. Suddenly, all of them start throwing the boosters around the room, playing some kind of stupid game where I’m in the middle and they continually throw them over my head—”

“Piggy in the middle. It’s an earth game. No wonder you never heard of it.”

Dylan dismissed the remark with a wave of his hand. “So I chase them all over the room, running after them as they throw the stupid things around. And then, just as I grab one of the boosters, the nanoboots grab me and start waltzing around the room with me. For half an hour. For _half an_ _hour_ , Mr. Harper. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to waltz with robots for _half an_ _hour_?”

Harper looked up at him. “Dylan, I’m sorry, okay? I’m just bored to death up here. There’s nothing for me to do here.”

Dylan’s bad mood evaporated as he looked down at him.

“Okay, Harper. Trance is going to kill me, but fine, I’m going to dismiss you from medical. You’re healthy enough. Only question is, can you walk?”

Harper’s smile evaporated. “I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s find out.” Dylan quickly wrapped a blanket around Harper (he didn’t want the damned idiot to catch a cold the second he was out of bed. With the man’s immune system, he’d probably kneel over and die tomorrow.) and the gently helped him stand up.

Harper clenched his teeth as the still sensitive skin on his back stretched slightly. But it wasn’t so bad.

He held the blanket tightly around himself and carefully placed down one foot and then the other until he was standing up straight.

He swayed on his feet for a moment and Dylan grabbed him around the shoulders.

Slowly, they shuffled out of medical.

As they walked, Dylan couldn’t help but feel a small hint of anger simmering inside of him.

“I’m going to kill the beasts who did this to you, Harper. One day. I swear.” He said as they slowly struggled down the hallway.

Harper smiled through his clenched teeth. A thin film of sweat was forming on his forehead. He slowly shook his head.

“Won’t do any good, Dylan.” He gasped out. “Like Rev said, revenge is just a huge circle. Never stops. Never solves anything.”

Dylan stole a quick glance at him, but didn’t respond.

They continued shuffling down the hallway.

* * *

Harper stood alone in his quarters, two weeks after his punishment. His back was healing up nicely, although he did have to go to medical once a day to swallow IB’s and get disinfected. So far, not one single cut had gotten infected. The cuts on his cheeks were just scabs now and the bruising and swelling were completely gone.

He stood in front of a mirror, staring at himself.

The one part of him that he hadn’t taken a look at was his arm.

Slowly and gingerly, he rolled up his right shirt sleeve. Trance had told him that the swelling and burning had faded, so all that was left now was whatever they had burned over the tattoo.

Staring into the mirror, his face blank, he turned his arm to face the mirror.

A huge, thick black circle had been burned around the three small stars, and over top of the circle, slashing through the little triangle the stars had made, was a large X.

He stared into the mirror, feeling completely numb.

And as he stared harder and harder at his arm, his vision blurred and he couldn’t see the stars anymore.

Only those thick, black slashes, burned into his arm.

* * *

Hanging onto Beka’s arm, Harper slowly shuffled down the ramp in command. Tyr, who was sitting in the piloting chair, glanced up and hopped off as he saw him coming.

Without a word, Tyr gently picked him up and put him into the chair. He pretended not to see the grimace of pain flicker across his face as his still sensitive back made contact with the back of the chair.

Beka, however, did see and she immediately ripped off the sweater she had tied around her waist and put it behind his back.

Harper grinned up at all of them. “Okay, now that I’m nearly pampered to death and had to drag my ass all the way over here, would somebody please tell me what I’m doing here?”

Dylan walked over to him and stood in front of him.

“A few days ago, we got a message saying that somebody being held in a prison on earth wanted to contact you. It was their last request.”

Harper frowned. “What do you mean ‘last request’?”

Dylan looked him straight in the eyes. “Last request before their deaths, I mean. It was this person’s last wish in life to talk to you.”

Harper’s eyes drifted down to the floor, lost in thought. Who the hell would want to spend the last moments of their life talking to him? Besides, who the hell did he know who was going to die? Everybody he knew was already dead. His thoughts were interrupted as a coughing fit seized his body and he nearly fell out of the chair.

Beka, who was punching some controls beside her, immediately reached over with her other hand and held him back.

After the coughing was over, he weakly nodded his head at Dylan. “Okay. Let’s hear it.” He rasped.

“Any idea who it might be?” Beka asked, not looking up from the controls.

Harper shook his head, staring at the screen.

“Okay, the transmission is coming through now.” Rev said.

Slowly, an image flickered onto the screen. Harper squinted, trying to make out the dimly lit image.

From the cold, dark bricks lining the walls and the chains hanging from the ceiling, he could tell it was a jail cell. His skin crawled. Who did he know who was in jail?

His eyes scanned around the dark cell until he finally saw a figure sitting in the corner, one knee pulled up to his chest and the other leg stretched out. There were thick chains around both his ankles and around his thin wrists which poked out of the thin, torn shirt.

His pants were badly torn too and his shirt was covered in filth and blood. He had no shoes or socks on his feet which were so dirty that Harper could tell he had been walking around barefoot for quite a while.

Harper still had no idea who the person was, until the figure coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood and slowly raised his head.

Despite the dirt, despite the torn clothes, despite the tired and weary look on his face, despite the chains hanging around his wrists and ankles and despite the dim lighting in the cell, Harper immediately recognized the black hair and the pale blue eyes which looked at him.

“Pez?” He whispered, not daring to believe what he was seeing.

The person smiled, a thin, ghostly smile of a person was more dead than alive.

“Shay?” His voice was raspy and tired, but Harper still recognized it.

A wild joy filled him as he finally recognized his best friend.

“Pez!” he cried out, a smile lighting up his face. He was about to jump up and run to his friend, but just then, he remembered that thousands of miles, even a few solar systems separated them.

He calmed down, but the smile on his face wouldn’t evaporate.

“Pez, my God. I thought you were dead by now.”

Pez laughed. His laughter ended in a coughing fit which rattled the chains on his wrists, but it was still his laughter.

“What a way to greet an old friend, Seamus.”

Harper grinned back. “My God. I ain’t meaning to be rude, but how the hell did you make it this far alive?”

Pez grinned. “Wasn’t easy. Wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that.” He choked out, trying to keep his coughs down.

So, slowly and sometimes pausing to take a breath or to cough, Pez told him what his life had been like for the past three years.

Most of them had been spent preparing for the revolution, going all around and spreading the word and organizing for more weapons. He had gone to Sib who had gladly loaned him the use of one of his runners to fly him around everywhere. Three months after Harper had left, a Magog raid had descended upon the city where they had lived. Pez hadn’t been there at the time, but when he got home, he said there was barely anything left. Never mind anyone.

“Even Charlie? And Mindy? And Sib? And Curly?” Harper asked.

Pez gave him a look and coughed and continued on with his story. There was no reason to respond. Harper had known the answer before he had asked.

So he had moved onto another city and continued his work there. Right before the revolution was going to be started, him and the other two leaders went into hiding.

After the ‘big score’ was crushed in two days by the Nietzscheans, it took them only a week to find all three leaders. They had been thrown into prison and kept there for weeks already. Being tortured, starved, ridiculed, humiliated, anything which would satisfy the Nietzscheans rages over what had happened.

Harper glanced up at his friend. “What are they gonna do with you at the end?”

Pez smiled. A bitter, hard smile.

Beka immediately recognized that smile. That was Harper’s smile. That old smile that was much too old for both of their young faces.

“You do know that this is my last request, don’t you?” he said.

Harper didn’t smile back. He knew it would come. He just didn’t want it to. He took a deep breath. He’d have to accept it sometime or another. He blinked. He just didn’t want to right now. No. Right now, he wanted to pretend that this was just him and Pez, sitting on their old mattress, talking about life.

“Did they hurt you bad, Shay?” Pez asked, frowning down at his friend. He had seen the stiff way he was sitting and the slight grimace of pain every time he moved an inch.

Harper shook his head. “Not too bad. Just the usual.” He shrugged.

“Sure, sure, Mr. Tough Guy.” Pez said, trying to laugh, but only managing to choke out a cough.

Both of them were silent for a moment, until Pez looked up at him.

“Hey, Shay?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t still feel guilty do ya?”

Harper froze, not knowing how to answer the question. Such a simple question, yet he couldn’t answer it.

“Cause, you know, Shay, you don’t have to. I know how you feel. Same way I feel. We got hundreds of people into the thing, painted smiles on our faces and made them all believe that we had a chance. Then we both just turned and ran. It don’t make a difference that you ran earlier than me, it just matters that we both ran away and threw all the others to the Nietzscheans without a backwards glance.” Pez coughed. “And I felt as guilty as hell, Shay. I felt damn guilty. And hypocritical too.”

Harper nodded. That’s exactly the same way he had been feeling for the past three years.

“But, Shay, you know what I realized? Both of us might have run, and neither of us might have done the actual fighting, but we both got punished, didn’t we? Even though we didn’t run with the rest, we still took the fall with the rest. And that’s worth tons more than going there and flinging a few rocks with the rest of the crowd. Don’t feel guilty, Seamus. We’ve both paid up.”

Harper blinked back the tears which had welled up in his eyes. It was true. They had both abandoned all the people who had trusted them with their own lives, but at the end, they hadn’t abandoned them. When it counted, they hadn’t abandoned them.

“Thanks, Pez.” He whispered, looking at his best friend through his tears.

Pez gave him a grin. “Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”

Harper laughed, but his laughter ended up in near sobs when he heard those words. Some things never changed.

He blinked a few times, trying to get a hold of himself, and then looked up at Pez. Something had just occurred to him.

“Well, Pez. You lost the big score, but at least you still got your revenge, didn’t ya? You still won.”

Pez slowly shook his head. “No, Shay. I thought I did. I really thought I had won. The day the revolution started, I thought, yeah, this was my payback. But then, when the numbers came in two days later that not only we’d lost, but that 50 million of our own had died,” he shook his head as pain filled tears filled his eyes. “No, that wasn’t a victory. I hadn’t won, Shay. You don’t win by killing millions of your own people. No. The only person who really won here is you, Shay.”

Harper frowned. “Me? Why me? I’m the coward who ran away in the first place.”

Pez shook his head, tears slowly running down his tired face. “No, Shay. You’re not a coward. You just ran away from something that you knew was doomed in the first place. You ran away and got your revenge somewhere else. You won, Shay. I mean, look at you. Working on a High Guard starship, having a good, legal job, having friends around you who care about you, and being able to truly say you’re on the same level as the Nietzscheans. You ain’t a kludge anymore, Shay. That’s why you won. You won.”

Harper couldn’t stop the tears that were pouring down his face. He had won, and he was going to live, but Pez, who had fought for that revenge his entire life, wasn’t going to live. It was so damned unfair.

“It ain’t fair, Pez.”

Pez nodded, understanding what he was talking about. “Life ain’t fair, Shay. You out of all people should know that. I never asked for this, but then again, neither did you. We take whatever we’re given and we make the best out of it. I’m gonna die tomorrow—”

Harper squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the pain which had erupted within him to subside.

“But that don’t mean that I’m done fighting.”

Harper stared at him through tear filled eyes. “Don’t be stupid, Pez. You can’t do nothing when you’re dead.”

“Shay, I can’t do nothing, that’s for sure. But when I die tomorrow, people are gonna remember me. You’re gonna remember me. And people are gonna remember why I died. They’re gonna remember what I fought for. And one day, not now and not anytime soon, but one day, people are gonna try and do what I tried to do. Maybe, the big score will work then, maybe it won’t. But at least, they’ll have tried. You see, that’s what my death will do. It’ll be a reminder for people everywhere to keep on fighting.”

Harper was sobbing now, not caring anymore.

“But, Shay, I don’t know if anybody is really gonna care enough right now to remember why I’m gonna die. It won’t matter for a few more years. People are gonna be too scared to remember. But when they’re not too scared, they’ll need someone to remind them. That’s what I need you to do for me, Shay. To remind the people. To remind them of me. To remind them why I died. Cause you’re the only one whose really gonna remember.” Pez tried to smile through his tears. “Will you do that for me, Shay? Will you make people remember?”

Harper nodded, barely able to talk as he sobbed. This was his best friends last wish. His dying wish. To be remembered.

“Mera kurita.” He choked out. “Mera kurita.” (I promise.)

Pez smiled. “Feria.” He whispered through his tears. (Thank you.)

Dylan gently leaned over and told him that the transmission was going to end any minute.

Harper gripped the arm rests of his chair and pushed himself up. Sobbing, his vision blurred through his tears, he struggled up, ignoring the aching pain in his back.

He shuffled forward until he was standing in front of the screen, inches away from Pez.

“Feria.” Pez whispered again, looking up at his friend, his eyes filled with grateful tears.

Harper tried to shrug. “Nothing you wouldn’t—” his voice broke and he nearly collapsed. “Nothing you wouldn’t—have done—for me.” He breathed out.

He wanted to scream, wanted to fight, wanted to rip every Nietzscheans throat out, wanted to fly to earth and kidnap Pez. Wanted anything except to have his best friend die the next morning. But he knew there was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could do.

“Mera kurita.” He whispered. “Mera kurita.” He sobbed harder, hardly able to get the words out.

He numbly lifted his hand up to the screen.

Pez struggled to stand up, using the wall to try and raise his battered body until he was standing right in front of him.

Staring at the messy, black hair and the fading pale blue eyes, Harper couldn’t believe how much time had passed since Pez had pulled him behind that piece of wood, out of the night patrols way and they had shared that beer.

Nearly ten years ago. Ten years.

And now, their friendship would end.

No. Their friendship wouldn’t end. Harper knew, as well as Pez did, that his spirit would life on forever within him. And that promise he had made to him, that promise would now seal Pez’s spirit within every heart of every human being on earth or any other Nietzschean occupied planet. Harper would make sure of that.

“Mera kurita.” He whispered again.

Then, slowly, his mind barely aware of what he was doing, his fingers slowly formed into the ancient signal. He stared at his hand, not being able to remember the last time he had made the signal with his hand.

Oh yes, he did remember. The night he had said good bye to Pez. Well, now he had to say good bye to Pez again. But this time, forever.

Pez slowly made the signal too and held his shaking hand up to the screen. Lightly, they touched their fingers together in the secret handshake. Although millions of miles separated them, Harper swore he could feel the heat of his friends fingers pressed against his own.

Tears poured down both their faces as they both struggled to remain standing. They stared at each other, a thousand memories racing through their minds.

Harper opened his mouth.

“Crystallia Roxia.” He whispered, choking the words out through his tears.

Pez smiled. “Crystallia Roxia.” He whispered back, tears flowing down his pale face.

They stood there, frozen in time, staring at each other, their fingers touching.

Pez’s image started flickering as the transmission was slowly cut.

Harper’s other hand tried to grab the screen, grab the image, grab Pez.

“No.” he sobbed, his hand sliding down the screen. Slowly, the screen went blank and was replaced by the outside view of millions of stars in the empty, black space surrounding the ship.

“No!” Harper sobbed, sliding down onto the floor, not caring over who heard him, not caring about his aching back.

He sat on the floor, leaning against a cold metal panel, sobbing his heart out.

He pounded the floor with his fist, not noticing that, while one of his hands was in a tight fist, the other, his right hand, was still clenched together, with his two fingers forming a circle, and his other three fingers extended to the sky.

He didn’t notice.

He just sat on the ground, oblivious to his surroundings, sobbing his heart out as pain threatened to choke him.

Once again, he was about to lose another person he cared about.

And once more, there was nothing he could do about it.

“Mera kurita.” He sobbed, unaware of his friends crowding around him, trying to give him some comfort.

He didn’t want their comfort. He didn’t want anyone to tell him it would all be okay.

He just wanted this pain to stop. This suffocating pain.

“Mera kurita.”

* * *

A few days later, Harper stood on the obs deck, staring out at the inky black sky sprinkled with thousands of sparkling stars. He leaned against the railing, lost in thought.

Three days earlier, news had reached them that the three leaders of Crystallia had been burnt at the stake in front of thousands of their grieving members.

The Nietzscheans had stated their reasons for this barbaric act as a simple, ironic statement. The leaders had burnt their members for years, now they were burning the leaders. A simple chain reaction.

Harper traced a few scratches on the metal railing. Somehow, he couldn’t find it within himself to laugh.

He swallowed hard.

Somebody had also reported that just before the youngest leader had died, the young man had screamed out two words. The words had been lost in the crackling of the flames and the screams which had erupted from the throats of the other two, but Harper knew what the words had been.

Crystallia Roxia.

Harper knew that these would be Pez Madden’s last words.

When Pez had nothing left, after he had lost everything, he had reached out and grasped the only thing he could still fight with. The only thing he could still hold onto.

Hope.

It was just like Daxus had said long ago.

When you have nothing left, when you are all alone, and when you feel that life is no longer worth living because you have nothing left, there is one thing which you do have. And that one thing is hope. As long as there is life, there is hope.

He smiled and looked down at his arm.

The ugly, black slashes completely covered the three stars, suffocating them. He could hardly see them. But it was then that the realized he didn’t need to see them.

For, hope would always be with him. No matter what happened to him. No matter where he was and if he was all alone or if he had friends with him. No matter what anybody tried to do to him.

He would always have hope.

Crystallia Roxia.


End file.
